Kaleidoscope
by ice-connoisseur
Summary: Once upon a time, there lived a girl who loved a ghost, and they lived happily ever after.  This is not  quite  that story.  Ghost!Suze, Human!Jesse, AU, JS.
1. Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies

**Title**: Kaleidoscope  
**Summary**: Once upon a time, there lived a girl who loved a ghost, and they lived happily ever after. This is not that story. Ghost!Suze, Human!Jesse. AU. JS.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, never mine, and I promise to put them back when I'm done.

**AN **- I…did not mean for this to happen. A light, quick re-read of Meg Cabot was not meant to result in a full-blown, multi-chapter fanfic. But when the bunny bites…

It's been done before, I know, but a quick bit of research yielded no complete/recent results, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

Although this chapter does mirror the first chapter of Shadowland quite closely, after that the plots diverge completely. Mostly. Ok, I promise, I'm not just re-writing all six books and swapping every "him" and "her" I come to.

Much, anyway.

* * *

Chapter One – Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies

* * *

They didn't tell me about the palm trees.

Not once, in any of the many hours of conversation during which my mother had tried to sell my new home to me, had she mentioned palm trees.

I knew it was going to be hot, of course – I mean, come on. California. Its reputation precedes it. But my mom had warned me not to leave my jacket behind, and it was, after all, September. So seeing the sun blazing down on rows of palm trees as we landed was a bit of a shock. It had been raining when we'd taken off in New York.

I wasn't sure what to make of this; I'd never been a fan of the sweltering heat of New York summers, and the prospect of living in it all year round was not a pleasant one. But then again, Carmel-by-the-Sea was, as it's name suggested, by the sea, and about as different to the urban heat trap I was leaving behind as it is possible to be.

And if putting up with a bit of heat was what it would take to make my mom happy, then I could live with that. We're close, her and me. My dad died when I was six, and it's been just the two of us ever since.

Or it was, anyway. But not anymore. Which is why I've just flown three thousand miles across America; at the start of the summer, my mom got married again. So instead of it just being me and my mom knocking around a sixth floor New York apartment, it's now me, my mom, my new step-dad Andy and his three daughters all knocking around some house in Carmel, California. Which is going to take some getting used to.

But like I said, there isn't much I wouldn't do to make my mom happy; god knows her life's been hard enough, and I definitely don't make it any easier. And I like Andy, I really do. He's a bit of a joker, but he means well, and he's yet to try and have a manly father-and-son moment with me.

They were all there to meet me from the plane; my mom, Andy, and Andy's three daughters. Georgina, Melissa, Sarah. My stepsisters. Weird.

"Jesse!"

My mom was squealing my name and waving madly the moment I stepped into the arrivals lounge. I'd barely had time to move away from the door before she was on me, hugging me tight. At any other time, I'd have been embarrassed, mortified, even. I'm not a great one for public displays of affection, and, come on; I'm a seventeen-year-old guy being squeezed to death by his mom. But it was my mom, and it had been nearly two months since I'd last seen her, and I'd missed her, too. So I returned the hug, albeit slightly stiffly, before pulling away to turn and face my new family.

Luckily, no one else seemed at all inclined to greet me as enthusiastically as my mother. The girls merely grinned at me from where they stood a few paces away; Georgie in welcome, Sarah with a sort of quivering excitement, and Melissa with almost bored indifference.

"How was your flight, kid?" Andy came forward to clasp my shoulder briefly and then take me case. "Whoa, what've you got in here, anyway? You know it's a felony to smuggle New York City fire hydrants across state lines."

I smiled at him. Andy's this really big goof, but he's a nice big goof. He wouldn't have the slightest idea what constitutes a felony in the state of New York since he's only been there five times. Which was, coincidentally, exactly how many visits it took him to convince my mother to marry him.

"It's not a fire hydrant," I said. "It's a parking meter. And I have four more bags."

"Four?" Andy pretended he was shocked. "What do you think you're doing, moving in, or something?"

Did I mention that Andy thinks he's a comedian? He's not. He's a carpenter.

"Jesse," Sarah rushed forward, eyes shining as she bypassed greetings entirely in favor of an enthusiastic lecture. "Jesse, did you notice that as you were landing, the tail of the plane kicked up a little? That was from an updraft. It's caused when a mass moving at a considerable rate of speed encounters a counter-blowing wind velocity of equal or greater strength."

Sarah, Andy's youngest kid, is twelve going on fifty. She spent almost the entire wedding reception telling me about alien cattle mutilation, and how Area 51 is just this big cover-up by the American government, which doesn't want us to know that We Are Not Alone.

I smiled down at her – you honestly can't help it faced with a kid that earnest – but before I could reply, Melissa had elbowed her little sister out the way.

"Jesse," she gushed in a breathy voice. "Hi. It's so good you're here. There's, like, so many people who are just dying to meet you."

I smiled politely, unsure as to the correct response to this. Something told me the people Melissa had lined up to meet me would probably not be the people I would be so keen to meet. Luckily, I was saved from replying by Georgie, who greeted me with a lazy wave.

"Leave the poor boy alone, Mel. Hey, Jess."

I couldn't be annoyed with Georgie shortening my name, though as a rule I despised it. Georgie shortened everyone's name. At nearly six foot, with cropped, spiked copper hair and skin brazened by the Californian sun, Georgie wasn't the sort of person many people would argue with.

"Oh, Jesse," my mom kept saying. "I'm so glad you're here. You're just going to love the house. It just didn't feel like home at first, but now that you're here … Oh, and wait until you've seen your room. Andy's fixed it up so nice..."

Andy and my mom spent weeks before they got married looking for a house big enough for all four kids to have their own rooms. They finally settled on this huge house in the hills of Carmel, which they'd only been able to afford because they'd bought it in this completely wretched state, and this construction company Andy does a lot of work for fixed it up at a big discount rate. That was why I'd spent the summer in New York, while my mom moved in with Andy and his daughters at their old house; there just wasn't room enough there for us all. But now the new house was finished, and here I was.

"But come on, we'd better get your bags before someone else picks them up."

Though, looking around, I couldn't help but think the chances of that happening were pretty slim. I'd never been to California before, and we'd not even left the airport yet, but it was already easy to tell I wasn't in New York any more. Everything was so _clean – _the floor, the walls, even the people. All smiling faces and pleases and thank yous. Complete calm. No pushing and shoving in queues or shouting at bored airport personnel; these were definitely not the sort of people who would be running off with the suitcases containing some teenagers worldly possessions.

I'd barely been in the state five minutes, and I had to admit, I already kind of liked it.

The one thing I still wasn't sure about was the sun. The moment we stepped out of the terminal building it hit me, beating down in unrelenting waves of heat. I squinted, un-amused, as the rest of my new family calmly fished into their pockets and pulled out pairs of sunglasses. I didn't even own a pair of sunglasses.

But as my eyes adjusted to the light, if not the heat, they were bombarded by a cacophony of colour. That's what California seemed to consist of so far; heat and bright colours. The red flowers that surrounded the parking lot, green palm leaves, brown hills rising up in the distance, and blue, blue sky. It was like a rainbow had just exploded in front of my face.

My moment of careful adjustment to this new and unfamiliar assault on my senses was interrupted by Mel, who suddenly announced "I'll drive" and began to head towards the drivers side of the large utility vehicle we were approaching.

"_I _will drive," Andy said firmly.

"Aw, Dad," Mel moaned. "What's the point of having a license if you never let me drive?"

"You can drive the Rambler," Andy said calmly. He opened up the back of his Land Rover, and started putting my bags into it. "That goes for you, too, Jesse."

This startled me. "What goes for me, too?"

"You can share the Rambler with Georgie and Mel. Argue about it amongst yourselves."

I just blinked up at him. "I can't drive."

Mel turned to stare at me, horrified.

"You can't drive?"

She elbowed Georgie, who was leaning against the side of the truck, her face turned toward the sun. "Hey, Georgie, he can't drive!"

I shrugged awkwardly, feeling uncomfortable at her incredularity. I'd never thought it odd before that I didn't drive; barely anyone I knew did.

Luckily, my mom seemed to sense my unease and came to my rescue.

"I never kept a car in the city." she said carefully. "There never seemed any point."

Andy closed the doors to the back of the Land Rover. "Don't worry, Jesse," he said easily. "We'll get you enrolled in a driver's ed. course right away. You'll be whizzing about with the rest of them in no time."

I wasn't entirely sure if I really wanted to be "whizzing about with the rest of them", but I kept my thoughts to myself. It was already becoming apparent that things were going to be different – very, very different – to what I was used to, and, indeed, to what I had anticipated. And not just because I was living on the opposite side of the continent.

Everywhere I looked, I saw things I'd never have seen back in New York: roadside stands advertising artichokes or pomegranates, twelve for a dollar; field after field of grapevines, twisting and twisting around wooden arbors; groves of lemon and avocado trees; lush green vegetation I couldn't even identify. And arcing above it all, a sky so blue and vast I felt suddenly very, very small.

There was the ocean, too, bursting so suddenly into view that at first I didn't recognize it, thinking it was just another field. But then I noticed that this field was sparkling, reflecting the sun, flashing little Morse code SOSs at me. The light was so bright it was hard to look at without sunglasses. But there it was, the Pacific Ocean…huge, stretching almost as wide as the sky, a living, writhing thing, pushing up against a comma-shaped strip of white beach. Being from New York, my glimpses of ocean – at least the kind with a beach – had been few and far between. This was a pretty magnificent introduction.

It took nearly an hour to get from the airport to the house, and it wasn't a quick hour either. I was wedged between Georgie, who spent most of the trip gazing out the window, and Mel, who's phone appeared to be welded to her hand, while Sarah perched in the back on top of my luggage, chatting nineteen to the dozen about anything ranging from sheep cloning to the history of my new home town, changing topic so quickly I gave up trying to keep up, never mind contribute.

It was Sarah's mention of a Spaniard called Junipo Serrea and his plan to convert the natives that made my mom suddenly join the conversation, launching into a long and detailed account of the school to which I was being sent. I wasn't really listening to her any more than I had listened to Sarah, until the mention of a year caught my attention.

"Wait a minute. When was this school built?"

"The eighteenth century," Sarah replied. "The mission system, implemented by the Franciscans under the guidelines of the Catholic Church and the Spanish government, was set up not only to Christianize the Native Americans, but also to train them to become successful trades people in the new Spanish society. Originally, the mission served as a – "

"Eighteenth century?" I interrupted, leaning forward. "The _eighteenth_ century?"

My mother must have heard the panic in my voice, since she turned in her seat and said, soothingly, "Now, Jesse, we discussed this. I told you, there's a year waiting list at Robert Louis Stevenson, and Andy's heard some awful stories about drug abuse and gang violence in the public schools around here – "

"Eighteenth century?" I could feel my heart starting to pound hard, as if I'd been running. "That's _three hundred years old_!"

"I don't get it."

We were driving through the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea now, all picturesque cottages – some with thatched roofs, even – and beautiful little restaurants and art galleries. Andy had to drive carefully because the traffic was thick with people in cars with out-of-state licenses, and there weren't any stoplights, something that, for some reason, the natives took pride in.

"What's so bad," he wanted to know, "about the eighteenth century?"

My mother said, without any inflection in her voice whatsoever – what I call her bad-news voice, the one she uses on TV to report plane crashes and child murders, "Jesse has never been very wild about old buildings."

"Oh," Andy said. "Then I guess he isn't going to like the house."

I clenched my hands tightly. "Why?" I demanded, in a carefully controlled voice, "Why am I not going to like the house?"

I saw why, of course, as soon as we pulled in. The house was huge, with Victorian-style turrets and a widow's walk – the whole works. My mom had had it painted blue and white and cream, and it was surrounded by big, shady pine trees, and sprawling, flowering shrubs. Three stories high, constructed entirely from wood, and not the horrible glass-and-steel or terra-cotta stuff the houses around it were made of, it was the loveliest, most tasteful house in the neighborhood.

And I didn't want to set foot in it.

I knew when I'd agreed to move with my mom to California that I'd be in for lots of changes. The roadside artichokes, the lemon groves, the ocean…they were nothing, really. The fact was, the biggest change was going to be sharing my mom with other people. In the decade since my father had died, it had been just the two of us, and I have to admit, I sort of liked it like that. In fact, if it hadn't been for the fact that Andy made my mom so obviously happy, I would have put my foot down and said no way to the whole moving thing. But you couldn't even look at them together – Andy and my mom – and not be able to tell right away that they were completely gaga over each other. And what kind of son would I have been if I said no way to that? So I accepted Andy, and I accepted his three daughters, and I accepted the fact that I was going to have to leave behind everything I had ever known in order to give my mom the happiness she deserved.

But I hadn't really considered the fact that, for the first time in my life, I was going to have to live in a _house_.

And not just any house, either, but, as Andy proudly told me as he was taking my bags from the car, a nineteenth century converted boarding house. Built in 1849, it had apparently had quite a little reputation in its day. Gunfights over card games and women had taken place in the front parlor. You could still see the bullet holes. In fact, Andy had framed one rather than filling it in.

It was a bit morbid, he admitted, but interesting, too. He bet we were living in the only house in the Carmel hills that had a nineteenth century bullet hole in it.

Huh, I said. I bet that was true.

My mother kept glancing in my direction as we climbed the many steps to the front porch. I knew she was nervous about what I was going to think. I was kind of irked at her, really, for not warning me. I guess I could understand why she hadn't, though. If she'd told me she had bought a house that was more than a hundred years old, I wouldn't have moved out here. I would have stayed with Grandma until it was time for me to leave for college.

Because my mom's right: I don't like old buildings.

Although, as old buildings went, this one was really something. When you stood on the front porch, you could see all of Carmel beneath you, the village, the valley, the beach, the sea. It was a breathtaking view, one that people would – and had, judging from the fanciness of the houses around ours – pay millions for; one that I shouldn't have resented, not in the least.

And yet, when my mom said, "Come on, Jesse. Come see your room," I couldn't help shuddering a little.

The house was as beautiful inside as it was outside. All shiny maple and cheerful blues and yellows. I recognized my mom's things, and that made me feel a little better. There was the pie-safe she and I had bought once on a weekend trip to Vermont. There were my baby pictures, hanging on the wall in the living room, right alongside Georgie, Mel and Sarah's. There were my mother's books in the built-in shelves in the den. Her plants, which she'd paid an exorbitant price to have shipped because she'd been unable to bear parting with them, were everywhere, on wooden stands, hanging in front of the stained-glass windows, perched on top of the newel post at the end of the stairs.

But there were also things I didn't recognize: a sleek white computer sitting on the desk where my mother used to write out cheques to pay the bills; a wide-screen TV tucked into a fireplace in the den; a pile of shoes, jackets and bags in the alcove by the door; a huge, slobbery dog who seemed to think I was harboring food in my pockets since he kept thrusting his big wet nose into them. I dodged around him, and followed my mom up the stairs. My room was on the third floor, along with Georgie.

"Now, it's not a big room," my mom said nervously as she led the way. "But it's lovely, tucked away under the roof, and Andy's built you a window seat so you can sit and look out at the sea. And I've done a bit of decorating, but if you don't like it, we can easily change it…"

But, when she opened the door and ushered me inside, I realized I didn't want to. It was almost touching, really, the trouble they'd gone to, to make the room feel like home. My mom was right; it wasn't huge. Long, certainly, but quite narrow. But I didn't care. My mom must have been shopping, because I didn't recognize the furniture - a cabin bed opposite the door, with drawers underneath it and shelves above, the wooden desk at the other end of the room – but it was pretty much exactly what I'd have chosen if I'd been with her. And someone - I presumed Andy – had painted the walls pale blue, and there was a rug on the bare wood floorboards.

I stepped carefully across the threshold, looking around, already laying out my belongings on the copious number of shelves my mother had obviously warned Andy to put up. Okay, I was thinking, this is fine. Good, even. Maybe it'll be all right, maybe no one was ever unhappy in this house, maybe all those people who got shot deserved it...

Until I turned toward window on the far wall, and saw that someone was already sitting on the window seat.

Someone who was not related to me, or to Georgie, or Melissa, or Sarah.

I turned toward Andy, to see if he'd noticed the intruder. He hadn't, even though she was right there, right in front of his face.

My mother hadn't seen her, either. All she saw was my face. I guess my expression must not have been the most pleasant, since her own fell, and she said with a sad sigh, "Oh, Jesse. Not again."

* * *

_To be continued..._

* * *

It's interesting trying to write from a guy's point of view – any thoughts/feedback on that aspect in particular are much appreciated. Reviews in general are love.


	2. Hello Goodbye

**Title**: Kaleidoscope  
**Summary**: Once upon a time, there lived a girl who loved a ghost, and they lived happily ever after. This is not (quite) that story. Ghost!Suze, Human!Jesse. AU. JS.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, never mine, and I promise to put them back when I'm done.

**AN **– I turned 21 over the weekend. And I'm writing Mediator fanfiction. I'm just that cool.

* * *

Chapter 2 - Hello Goodbye

* * *

I guess I should explain. I'm not exactly your typical seventeen-year-old guy.

Oh, I _seem _normal enough, I guess. I don't do drugs, or drink, or smoke. I don't have anything pierced, I don't have any tattoos. I've never dyed my hair. All in all, I am a pretty average, slightly bookish, American teenage guy.

Except, of course, for the fact that I can talk to the dead.

I probably shouldn't put it that way. The more accurate thing to say is that the dead talk to me. I mean, I don't go around initiating these conversations; in fact, I try to avoid the whole thing as much as possible.

It's just that sometimes they won't let me be.

The ghosts, I mean.

I don't think I'm crazy. At least, not any crazier than the rest of the population. I guess I might _seem _crazy to some people - I've been caught talking seemingly to myself more than once, and have, a couple of times, been spotted manhandling thin air. I've had the school counselors sicced on me a couple of times, and sometimes I even think it might be

simpler just to _let _them lock me up.

But even on the ninth floor of Bellevue – which is where they lock up the crazy people in New York – I probably wouldn't be safe from the ghosts. They'd find me.

They always do.

I still remember my first. Well, I remember it as clearly as any of my other memories of that time, which is to say, not very well, since I was about two years old. I didn't know then that ghosts were something to be afraid of. Which is why, fifteen years later, they still don't frighten me. Startle me, maybe, sometimes. Annoy me, a lot. But frighten me?

Never.

The ghost was little, gray and helpless. To this day, I don't know who she was. I spoke

to her, some baby gibberish that she didn't understand; ghosts can't understand two-year-olds any better than anybody else. She just looked at me sadly from the top of the stairs of our apartment building. I guess I felt sorry for her, and wanted to help her, only I didn't know how. So I did what any uncertain two-year-old would do. I ran for my mother.

That was when I learned my first lesson concerning ghosts: only I can see them. Well, obviously, other people _can _see them too - how else would we have haunted houses and ghost stories and _Unsolved Mysteries _and all of that? - but there's a difference. Most people who see ghosts only see _one_. I see _all _ghosts.

_All of them_. Anybody. Anybody who has died and for whatever reason is hanging around on earth instead of going wherever it is he or she is supposed to go, I can see. And let me tell you, that is _a lot _of ghosts.

I found out the same day that I saw my first ghost that most people – even my own mother – can't see them at all. Neither can anyone else I have ever met. At least, no one who'll admit it.

Which brings us to the second thing I learned about ghosts that day fifteen years ago: it's really better, in the long run, not to mention that you've seen one. Or, as in my case, any.

I'm not saying my mother figured out that it was a ghost I was pointing to and gibbering about that afternoon when I was two. I doubt she knew it. But she looked gamely up the

stairs and nodded and said, "Uh-huh. Listen, Jesse. What do you want for lunch today? Grilled cheese? Or tuna fish?"

It wasn't the reaction I'd been expecting. I was given explanations for virtually everything else I encountered on a daily basis, from fire hydrants to electrical outlets, and so I had expected at least an _acknowledgment _of the thing floating at the top of the stairs. But as I sat munching my grilled cheese a little later, I realized that the reason my mother had offered no explanation for the gray thing was that she hadn't been able to _see _it. To her, it wasn't there.

At two years old, this didn't seem unreasonable to me. It just seemed, at the time, like another thing that separated children from adults: Children had to eat all their vegetables. Adults did not. Children could ride the merry-go-round in the park. Adults could not. Children could see the gray things. Adults could not.

And even though I was only two years old, I understood that the little gray thing at the top of the stairs was not something to be discussed. Not with anybody. Not ever.

And I never did. I never told anyone about my first ghost, nor did I ever discuss with anyone the hundreds of other ghosts I encountered over the course of the next few years. What was there to discuss, really? I saw them. They spoke to me. For the most part, I didn't understand what they were saying, what they wanted, and they usually went away. End of story.

It probably would have gone on like that indefinitely if my father hadn't suddenly up and died. Really. Just like that. One minute he was there, cooking and making jokes in the kitchen like he'd always done, and the next day he was gone. And, people kept assuring me all through the week following his death – which I spent on the stoop in front of our building, waiting for my dad to come home – he was never coming back.

I, of course, didn't believe their assurances. Why should I? My dad, not coming back? Were they nuts? Sure, he might have been dead. I got that part. But he was definitely coming back. Who was going to help me with my math homework? Who was going to wake up early with me on Saturday mornings, and make Belgian waffles and watch cartoons? Who was going to teach me to drive, like he'd promised, when I turned sixteen? My dad might have been dead, but I was definitely going to see him again. I saw lots of dead people on a daily basis. Why shouldn't I see my dad?

It turned out I was right. Oh, my dad was dead. No doubt about that. He'd died of a massive coronary. My mom had his body cremated, and she put his ashes in an antique German beer tankard. You know, that kind with the lid. My dad had always really liked beer. She put the tankard on a shelf, high up, where the cat couldn't knock it over, and sometimes, when she didn't think I was around, I caught her talking to it.

This made me feel really sad. I mean, I guess I couldn't blame her, really. If I didn't know any better, I'd probably have talked to that tankard, too.

But that, you see, was what all those people on my block had been wrong about. My dad was dead, yeah. But I _did _see him again.

He was the one who finally explained it to me. So I guess, in a way, it's a good thing he did die, since I might never have known, otherwise. He called me a mediator: the contact person for just about anybody who dies leaving things … well, untidy. Then, if I can, I clean up the mess. That's the only way I can think to explain it. I don't know how I got so lucky – I mean, I'm normal enough in every other respect. I just have this unfortunate ability to communicate with the dead.

Not _any _dead, either. Only the unhappy dead.

He hung around for a few years after he died, my dad. I was thirteen when he moved on; to this day I've never really worked out why. I always just figured he stayed to help me out with the whole ghost thing until he thought I was old enough to take care of it myself.

And mostly, I manage. It's not piece of cake, mind. Imagine, being haunted – literally haunted – by the dead, every single minute of every single day of your life. It is not pleasant. You go down to the deli to get a soda – oops, dead guy on the corner. Somebody shot him. And if you could just make sure the cops get the guy who did it, he can finally rest in peace. And all you wanted was a soda.

Or you go to the library to check out a book — oops, the ghost of some librarian comes up to you and wants you to tell her nephew how mad she is about what he did with her cats after she kicked the bucket.

And those are just the folks who _know _why they're still sticking around. Half of them don't have any idea why they haven't slipped off into the afterlife like they're supposed to.

Which is irritating because, of course, I'm the schmuck who's supposed to help them get there.

I'm the mediator.

I tell you, it is not a fate I would wish on anybody.

There isn't a whole lot of payoff in the mediation field. It isn't like anyone's ever offered me a salary, or anything. Not even _hourly _compensation. Just the occasional warm feeling you get when you do a good turn for somebody. Like telling some girl who didn't get to say good-bye to her grandfather before he passed away that he really loves her, and he forgives her for that time she trashed his El Dorado. That kind of thing can warm the heart, it really can.

But for the most part, it's cold shivers all the way. Besides the hassle – constantly being pestered by folks nobody but you can see – there's the fact that a lot of ghosts are really rude. I mean it. They are royal pains to deal with. These are generally the ones who actually _want _to hang around in this world instead of taking off for the next one. They probably know that based on their behavior in their most recent life, they aren't in for much of a treat in the one they've got coming up. So they just stay here and bug people, slamming doors, knocking over things, making cold spots, groaning. You know what I mean. Your basic poltergeists.

Sometimes, though, they can get rough. My mother raised me to be polite and courteous at all times, especially to girls, but though I tried, they were not always strictures I could follow. I mean, some ghosts, they try to hurt people. On _purpose_. That's when I usually get mad. I've been in more than my fair share of fights over the years; unfortunately, none of them have been with an opponent anyone but me knows exist.

Which was what my mom meant when she said, "Oh, Jesse. Not again."

Because, every now and again, things have a tendency to get a little … messy.

Not that I had any intention of messing up my new room, or the new life my mom was trying to build for us out here. Which is why I turned my back on the ghost sitting on my window seat and said, "Never mind, Mom. Everything's fine. The room is great. Thanks so much."

I could tell she didn't believe me. It's hard to fake out my mom; I guess I put so much effort into keeping my one great secret from her that everything else can't help but slip through. I know she suspects there's something up with me, she just can't figure out what it is. Which is probably a good thing, because it would shake up the world as she knows it in too major a way. I mean, she's a television news reporter. She only believes what she can see. And she can't see ghosts.

I can't tell you how much I wish I could be like her.

"Well," she said. "Well, I'm glad you like it. I was sort of worried. I mean, I know how you get about …well, old places."

Old places are the worst for me because the older a building is, the more chance there is that someone has died in it, and that he or she is still hanging around there looking for justice or waiting to deliver some final message to someone.

"Really, Mom," I said. "It's great. I love it."

Andy, hearing this, hustled around the room all excitedly, showing me the various other gadgets he'd installed. I followed him around, expressing my delight, being careful not to look in the ghost's direction. I was determined, because it was evident Andy wanted it so much, to _be _happy. At least as happy as it's possible for someone like me to be.

After a while, Andy ran out of stuff to show me, and went away to start the barbecue, since in honor of my arrival, we were having surf and turf for dinner. Mel and Georgie had long ago disappeared into the depths of their rooms, and Sarah, muttering mysteriously about an "experiment" she'd been working on, eventually drifted off to another part of the house, leaving me alone with my mother … well, sort of.

"Is it _really _all right, Jesse?" my mom wanted to know. "I know it's a big change. I know it's asking a lot of you – "

"It's fine, Mom," I said. "Really."

"I mean, it's selfish of me, I know. And you've been so good about it."

"Mom, honestly. I don't mind. I'm starting to like it here already."

"Oh, Jesse…what did I do to deserve you?"

It was a question I had asked myself on a daily basis for the past fifteen years. My mom was a great woman, who definitely didn't deserve to have a mediator for a son. God knows I've caused her enough worry over the years. While I've never actually been convicted of anything, I've spent any number of hours in my mother's therapist's office, being assured that this tendency I have to talk to myself is perfectly normal, but that my propensity to talk to people _who aren't there _probably isn't.

Ditto my dislike of any building not constructed in the past five years. Ditto the amount of time I spend in graveyards, churches, temples, mosques, other people's (locked) apartments or houses, and school grounds after hours.

But I was going to do my best to make sure that things would be better here. I had already resolved not to do anything that was going to end up getting me arrested.

"I do love you, you know."

"I know, mom." I shifted uncomfortably, very aware of the ghost who was now watching us with undisguised interest. "I love you too."

My mom beamed at me, reaching over to engulf me in a brief, tight hug.

"Well," she said, releasing me. "I guess you won't want help unpacking. I'll go see how Andy is doing with dinner."

Andy, in addition to being able to build just about anything, was also an excellent cook, something my mother most definitely was not.

"Yeah, Mom, you go do that. I'll just get settled in here, and I'll be down in a minute."

My mom nodded and got up – but she wasn't about to let me escape that easily. Just as she was about to go out the door, she turned around and said, her blue eyes all filled with tears, "I just want you to be happy, Jesse. That's all I've ever wanted. Do you think you can be happy here?"

"Sure, Mom," I said. "Sure, I'll be happy here."

"Really?" My mom was sniffling. "You swear?"

"I do."

And I wasn't lying, either. I mean, there'd been ghosts in my bedroom back in Brooklyn all the time, too.

She went away, and I shut the door quietly behind her. I waited until I couldn't hear her heels on the stairs anymore, and then I turned around.

"All right," I said, to the presence on the window seat. "Who on earth are you?"

To say that the girl looked _surprised _to be addressed in this manner would have been a massive understatement. She didn't just look surprised. She actually looked over her shoulder, to see if it was really her I was talking to.

But of course, the only thing behind her was the window, and through it, that incredible view of Carmel Bay. So then she turned back to look at me, and must have seen that my gaze was fastened directly on her face, for her eyes widened dramatically and a soft "Lord…" escaped her.

"It's no use calling on your higher power," I informed her, kicking off my shoes. "In case you haven't noticed, He isn't paying a whole lot of attention to you. Otherwise, He wouldn't have left you here to fester for – " I took in her outfit, which had a distinctly _Little House on the Prairie_ look to it - "What is it, a hundred and fifty years?"

She stared at me with eyes that were as green as grass. "You can…see me?" she asked, in a voice that sounded rusty from disuse.

I rolled my eyes. "Obviously."

"I don't understand," she said, in tones of wonder. "I don't understand how it is that you can see me. All these years, no one has ever – "

"Yeah," I said, cutting her off. I hear this kind of thing a lot, you understand. "Well, listen, the times, you know, they are a'changin'. So what's your glitch?"

She blinked at me with those big eyes.

"Glitch?" she echoed.

"Yeah. Glitch. Problem. Why are you still here?"

She looked at me, her expression calm and interested.

I elaborated. "_Why haven't you gone to the other side_?"

She shook her head. Her hair was curly and black, and sort of bounced round her shoulders as she moved. "I don't know what you mean."

"What do you mean, you don't know what I mean?" I sighed, running one hand through my hair. "You're _dead_. You don't belong here. You're supposed to be off doing whatever it is that happens to people after they're dead. Rejoicing in heaven, or burning in hell, or being reincarnated, or ascending another plane of consciousness, or whatever. You're not supposed to be just…well, just _hanging around_."

She looked at me thoughtfully, head cocked on one side. "And what if I happen to like just _hanging around_?" she wanted to know. I wasn't sure, but I had a feeling she was making fun of me. Which I definitely wasn't in the mood for. I mean, I'd just traveled a gazillion miles for what seemed like days in order to live with a bunch of stupid girls, I still had to unpack, I had already practically made my mother cry, and then I find a ghost in my bedroom. Can you blame me for being, well, short with her?

"Look," I said, flopping down onto the bed. "You can do all the hanging around you want, _senorita_. Hang away. I don't really care. But you can't do it here."

"Susannah," she said, not moving.

"What?"

"You called me senorita. I thought you might like to know I have a name. It's Susannah. As in, 'Don't you cry for me.'"

I nodded. "Right. Well, fine. Susannah, then. You can't stay here, Susannah."

"And you?" She was smiling at me now.

"And me, what?"

I knew I was being rude. For once, I didn't care.

"What is your name?"

I glared at her. "Look. Just tell me what you want, and get out. I'm hot, and I want to change clothes. I don't have time for – "

She interrupted, as amiably as if she hadn't heard me talking at all, "That woman – your mother – called you Jesse." Her green eyes were bright on me. "I thought that was a girls name?"

"It's a nickname" I said shortly. My name was a bit of a sore point.

She just kept on smiling. "So this is your room now, is it, Jesse?"

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, this is my room now. So you're going to have clear out."

"_I'm _going to have to clear out?" She arched one eyebrow. "This has been my home for a century and a half. Why do _I _have to leave it?"

"Because. This is _my _room."

"It was my room first."

I spluttered at her childish argument in disbelief for a moment, and then took a deep, calming breath.

"Look," I said through gritted teeth. "Susannah. This is my room, understand? It might have been yours once, but you can't stay here. You've either got to let me help you get to

where you're supposed to go, or you're going to have to find some other house to haunt. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

"And who are you to decide that?"

"I'm the mediator. I deal with ghosts. You got a problem, you come to me. But I'm not the sort of guy who's going to share his room with a member of the opposite sex. Understand me? So either you move out, or I force you out. It's entirely up to you. I'll give you some time to think about it. But when I get back here, Susannah, I want you gone."

I turned and left. I had to. I don't usually lose arguments with ghosts, but I had a feeling I was losing that one, and badly. I shouldn't have been so short with her, and I shouldn't have been rude. I could already feel the guilt creeping up on me; my mother would have been horrified if she'd heard me. I don't know what came over me, I really don't. I just…I guess I just wasn't expecting to find the ghost of a girl in my bedroom, that's all. And after all the promises I'd made, to myself and my mother, about new starts and staying out of trouble…

I'd give her a bit of time, I decided. She'd come round; I was sure they were pretty against the whole girl-and-boy-cohabiting scenario in the 1800s, so surely she'd see, at least from that angle, how inappropriate it would be.

She'd come round. They always do.

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_To be continued..._

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Reviews are love.


	3. Something

**Title**: Kaleidoscope  
**Summary**: Once upon a time, there lived a girl who loved a ghost, and they lived happily ever after. This is not (quite) that story. Ghost!Suze, Human!Jesse. AU. JS.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, never mine, and I promise to put them back when I'm done.

**AN – **Sorry for the delayed update, it's been a pretty hectic week with deadlines and end-of-term concerts and so on, but I've almost broken up for Christmas now, so hopefully I should have a bit more time. I'd really really like to get the Christmas chapter out by Christmas, but we'll see how it goes…And on that note, could someone give me a rough overview of a typical Californian Christmas? I'm guessing it's a bit different to the British ones I'm used to…

Thank you to everyone who's reviewing, and sorry for the lack of replies; that should be rectified from here on in!

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**Chapter 3 - **Something

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Dinner at the Ackerman household was pretty much like dinner in any other large household I had ever known: everybody talked at once and nobody wanted to clear the table afterward.

I decided it would be wise to avoid my room, to give Susannah plenty of time to make up her mind about whether she was leaving by her own volition or not. The problem with my plan, of course, was that it was Saturday night. I'd forgotten what day it was in all the stress of the move. Back home, I'd probably have gone out with a few mates and had a pizza, or just stayed up in my room with a book. Just because I'm from the big city doesn't mean my life there was exciting by any stretch of the imagination.

My mom, however, was still riding on her "new starts" high, and seemed anxious for me to throw myself into the social scene of Carmel as soon as possible. The dishwasher was barely loaded before she was grilling Mel on her activities for the evening.

"What are you doing tonight? Are there any parties, or anything? Maybe you could take Jesse and introduce him to some people."

Mel, who was examining herself in the reflective side of the microwave, sighed deeply.

"Yeah. I would. I so would. And I was, like, planning on it, but then he comes _this_ weekend," – at this point she turned to stare at me balefully, as if it were my fault my arrival date was so inconvenient to her – "when absolutely everyone is still away or only just getting back from vacation. There is absolutely nothing happening tonight. At all. I'm going to be so _bored_."

She sighed dismally again.

My mom sort of nodded, looking a bit non-plussed at all the drama. I didn't blame her.

I couldn't help but be relieved, though. I wasn't much of a party person at the best of times, never mind on days when I'd flown several thousand miles across country to find I was meant to be sharing my room with a ghost.

At this point, Georgie thundered down the stairs and rushed through the room, swearing profusely as she disappeared out the door, slamming it behind her.

Sarah glanced up at the clock and made a _t__sk-tsking _noise. "Late again. She's going to get herself fired if she doesn't watch it."

Georgie had a job? This was news to me, so I asked, "Where's she work?"

"Circle Theatre. It's a cinema." Sarah was performing some sort of bizarre experiment, which involved the dog and my mother's treadmill. The dog, who was huge – a cross between a St. Bernard and a bear, I think – was sitting very patiently on the floor while Sarah attached electrodes to small patches of the dog's skin she'd shaved free of fur. The strangest thing was that nobody seemed to mind this, least of all the dog.

"Huh," I said.

We ended up watching a movie, just Mel and me. Well, I say watching… in the end, I missed the whole thing. I fell asleep on the couch, and didn't wake up until Andy shook my shoulder a little after eleven.

"Up and at'em, kid," he said. "I think it's time to admit you've gone down for the count. Don't worry. Mel won't tell anybody."

I got up, groggily, and made my way up to my room. I headed straight for the windows, which I yanked open; to my relief there was no Susannah to block the way. _Yes_.

I've still got it.

I grabbed my duffel bag and went into the bathroom for a shower, coming out again feeling a little more awake. I looked around, feeling the cool breeze seeping in, smelling the salt in the air. Unlike back in Brooklyn, where our ears were under constant assault by sirens and car alarms, it was quiet in the hills, the only sound the occasional hoot of an owl.

I found, rather to my surprise, that I was alone. Really alone. A ghost-free zone. Exactly what I'd always wanted.

I got into bed and snuggled deep beneath the crisp new sheets, but I didn't fall right asleep. To my intense irritation, the refrain of "Oh Susannah" had somehow got stuck in my head, and I lay there for a good fifteen minutes with it playing over and over, until I finally gave in and hummed it, just once, very quietly.

And I swear that, just before I fell asleep, my eyes briefly fell on a soft glow coming from the vicinity of my window seat.

But that must have been just my imagination.

What definitely wasn't my imagination, however, was the shivering cold I awoke to. A thick fog, I saw with dismay as I hurried to shut my window, had enshrouded the valley, obscuring my view of the bay. I thought for sure some horrible tropical storm had rolled in, but Sarah explained, when I questioned her over breakfast, that morning fog was typical in the Northwest, and that the _Pacifico _– Spanish for passive – was so named because of its relative lack of storms. The fog, she assured me, would burn off by noon, and it would then be just as hot as it had been the day before.

And she was right. I spent most of the morning poking around downstairs, finding where things were and went, and by the time I returned to my room after lunch, my view to the sea was once more unobstructed, by fog or ghost.

I had planned to spend the afternoon unpacking. It wasn't like I could spend the next two years living out of four suitcases and a rucksack, after all, and the longer I left it, the more likely it was that my mom would take it upon herself to do it for me.

But I'd barely hefted the first case onto my bed before a sudden glow to my right announced the arrival of a spectral guest. I glanced up to see Susannah regarding me with a careful, closed expression.

I was instantly flooded with guilt about the way I'd treated her last time we had met; it wasn't her fault, after all, that of all the families to move into this house, it had to be one that contained a mediator. Nor was it her fault that, out of all the rooms in the house, it was mine she had been haunting for a hundred and fifty years. And I had been inexcusably rude.

"Hello,"

My guilt doubled at her response to my neutral greeting; a wide smile spread across her face, practically bubbling with joy.

"I thought I'd imagined it." she said in a rush. "Maybe a hundred and fifty years with no one to talk to had finally driven me insane enough to make it up."

I snorted. "I should be so lucky."

A brief flicker of confusion flashed across her face, but she didn't dwell on it.

"I still don't understand," she continued, "how it is you can see me, when no one else has ever been able to."

"That makes two of us, then." I said shortly, flipping open the lid of the suitcase. "It's something I've wondered every day for as long as I can remember."

"You can see all ghosts, then?" she asked curiously, coming closer. "Not just me?" And then, before I could reply, a gasp of delight. "Oh! Books!"

For the case I had opened was packed full with them. I had quite a collection, ranging from Rowling to Shakespeare, and hadn't been able to bare parting with even one of them. Susannah was staring at them with an almost hungry expression, like the starved man sat in front of his favorite meal.

"You like reading?" I asked.

She smiled widely. "Oh _yes."_ she agreed. "Yes, I do."

I grinned; it was hard to resist that level of enthusiasm. "I don't think I've ever meet a ghost that reads before."

"Maybe you've just never bothered to ask."

I frowned; that kinda hurt. As a rule, I was quite polite to the ghosts I came across. Far politer than some of them deserved. Just because I'd been rude to her didn't mean I was rude in general. But that also didn't mean I shouldn't apoligise.

"I'm sorry," I said sincerely. "I was very rude to you yesterday, and you didn't deserve it. I was tired and worried and annoyed, but it wasn't your fault and I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

Susannah waved one arm airily. "It's alright. You weren't terribly rude. And I can see why I might have caused you a bit of a shock."

"I think I gave you a bigger one." I pointed out as I took the first few books and began to slot them onto the empty shelves. "I don't think I've ever seen a ghost look so surprised."

She scowled. "Wouldn't you be? I've spent a hundred and fifty years in this room, unseen by every occupant it's ever had. And then you walk in and strike up conversation like it's the most ordinary thing in the world."

"It is, for me. Have you really not left this room in over a century?"

She looked offended at the suggestion. "Of course I have!" she replied, indignant.

I raised one eyebrow skeptically, but didn't question her. Instead, I handed her the next pile of books.

"Here. Just put them on the shelf in the order I give them to you."

She took them with an almost reverent expression, placing them gently on the shelves as if they were breakable china rather than my very beaten and abused hardbacks. We worked mostly in a companionable silence, broken only by Susannah occasionally asking me about plots, or my scolds when she became distracted and started to read.

The annoying thing was, I could already feel myself warming to her. If not for the whole dead-and-haunting-my-room thing, I suspect we could have been friends. But that's not what mediators do; we find out what is keeping ghosts here, and then we help them move on. We don't make friends. It's too…complicated.

When we were done, I moved onto clothes while Susannah retreated to the window seat again. She mostly stared out towards the sea, but every now and again I caught her glancing at the newly stocked bookshelf with undisguised longing. I had no doubt that the moment I was out the room she would be rifling through it. I could have stopped her, I suspected; if I explicitly forbid such an activity, I think she would have obeyed. But I could see no reason to do so, and I had no wish to be a tyrant.

"It must be hard," Susannah's voice interrupted my thoughts, "to move so far, and leave behind all your friends."

I shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I'll miss people, sure, but there was no one I was particularly close to. And if it makes my mom happy, then I don't see how moving here is too much of a price to pay."

She regarded me for a moment with an unreadable expression. I meet her gaze evenly, not backing down under her scrutiny.

"Well," she said at last, "_I _think you're very brave. I'm not sure I could have left behind everyone I knew to move to a whole new place, so very far away and different to what I was used to."

"Though you did, in a way." I pointed out.

Susannah smiled wryly and shook her head. "No. I had no choice in the matter. That makes all the difference."

"If you say so."

"Are you _really_ not going to miss your friends from New York?" she asked after a few moments silence.

I laughed; she was nothing if not persistent. "No, I told you. I never really had any one or two people I was particularly good friends with. I had a best friend when I was little, but he moved away when we were thirteen, and we both just sort of fell out of touch. Being a mediator doesn't really make for sustaining healthy long-term relationships with people. If I spend too much time with anyone, chances are they'll begin to notice my propensity to talk to thin air, or my occasional bouts of breaking and entering."

Susannah laughed; it was a nice laugh, I couldn't help but notice. Free and easy, not at all forced or put on. In fact, looking at her now, sitting on my window seat with the evening sun shining on her, I couldn't help but notice a lot of things. Like the way her eyes sparkled with mischief and delight, the way her hair bounced when she moved, the fit of her blue dress…

I mentally shook myself, horrified at the direction my thoughts were taking. Susannah was pretty, there was not denying it, but I had no right to be thinking such things. She was dead, for Christ's sake!

"Jesse?" her voice once more pulled me out of my own head. "Are you alright?"

Apparently concerned for my well-being – I had, after all, been staring at her without moving for several moments – she moved closer, one hand outstretched as if to touch my shoulder. And I panicked.

I wasn't sure what would happen if she touched me - I don't think she even knew that she could – but I was fairly certain that my already wavering resolve would swiftly crumble if I did not get out of this situation, and fast.

"I'm fine." I said quickly, shuffling slightly further away from her along my bed.

Susannah paused mid-step, apparently aware for the first time of her outstretched arm. She let it drop, looking embarrassed.

"Have you thought any more," I continued determinedly, "about what you want to do? Are you going to find another house to haunt, or do you want me to mediate you."

Susannah flinched as if she'd been stung. The calm mask she had worn since I'd met her slipped, and, just for a moment, a flash of pain flickered across her face. And then it was gone, replaced by such a closed expression that I was sure I must have imagined it.

"I see." she said quietly. "Those are my options, then? To leave the only home I have ever known, or to have you practically murder me?"

I rolled my eyes at her melodrama. "_Dios_, it is hardly murder, Susannah. You are already dead."

"I am aware of that!" she snapped. "But you would still be taking away what little existence I have left against my will, and that, I believe, is a fairly good definition of murder!"

She was truly angry now, standing before me with her hands balled into fists. I stood up, suddenly desperate for the slight advantage my greater height gave me, but even then the barely-contained fury in the tiny body before me was enough to make me pause. I was fairly sure that, had she lived a hundred years later, she would have hit me by now, and not just a girlish slap, either. It would have been a proper wallop.

I can't say I wouldn't have deserved it, either.

"Look," I said, desperately trying to calm her down; ghosts, when they get angry, have a tendency to make things fly through the air. Usually at me. And I could see the bookshelf behind her vibrating dangerously. "I don't have to meditate you. You could find somewhere else to haunt. Maybe the library; then you could read when ever you want."

"I don't want to haunt the library!" Susannah practically screeched. "One hundred and fifty years I have haunted this room, and not once has it been a problem! I have shared it with men and with women and with children, and sometimes a combination of the three, and never has anyone minded! But _now_, just because you can _see_ me, _well_…"

But she was interrupted mid-rant by my warning cry of "_Susannah!_", followed almost immediately by a crash as one of the shelves behind her finally gave way, spilling books all over the floor.

For a moment, neither of us moved, staring stupidly at the fallen shelf. And then Susannah's hands flew to her face, horror etched in every line.

"Oh…oh my…" she gasped, all traces of anger wiped away. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean…oh, all your lovely books…"

She knelt and began to stack them into piles once more, while I took the shelf and slotted in back into place.

"It's alright." I said quickly, seizing this sudden de-escalation in her mood and hoping to hold onto it. "No harm done."

For a lack of shouts or running footsteps told me my family had not noticed the noise, which was my main concern. I didn't fancy having to explain flying furniture so early in my stay.

"Oh, no, but I should have been more careful…" Susannah moaned, setting the last of the books on top of the pile she had made and then wrapping her arms around her knees, still sitting on the floor. "It's just been so _long…"_

"Look," I said, leaning forward and grasping her wrist to pull her upright, "Don't beat yourself up about it, I've seen far worse. At least you didn't send them flying at me, I've had that…"

I trailed off, for one glace at Susannah's face made it obvious she wasn't listening.

Ghosts don't have blood. How can they? They aren't alive. But I swear, at that moment, all the color had drained from her face, as if every ounce of blood that had once been there had evaporated just at that moment.

Not being alive, and not possessing blood, it follows that ghosts aren't made of matter, either. So it didn't make sense that I had been able to grab her arm; my hand should have passed right through her. Right?

Wrong.

That's how it works for most people, sure. But not for people like me. Not for the mediators. We can see ghosts, we can talk to ghosts, and, if necessary, we can touch them. But this isn't something I like to go around advertising - I try to avoid touching them as much as possible. If all attempts at mediation have failed, and I have to use a little physical coercion on a recalcitrant spirit, I generally prefer him or her not to know beforehand that I am capable of doing so. Sneak attacks are always advisable when dealing with members of the underworld, who are notoriously dirty fighters.

Susannah, staring down at my hand wrapped around her wrist, seemed incapable of saying anything. It was probably the first time she'd been touched by anyone in a century and a half. That kind of thing can blow a girl's mind. Especially a dead girl.

And looking back at how she'd reacted to merely being spoken to…well. I should have thought of that before touching her.

I abruptly let go of her wrist and backed away. Before I could speak, however, my mom's voice came from the landing.

"Jesse?"

I tore my gaze away from Susannah to glance automatically towards the door, and when I looked back, she was gone.

"Jesse, are you in here?"

My mom tapped gently on the door and pushed it open. I turned to face her, trying desperately to keep my face natural.

"I just came to see if you wanted any help. How's the unpacking going?"

"It's fine," I said, grinning weakly. "Just…sorting some books."

My mom nodded, glancing at the pile. "Oh, ok then. Andy's doing spaghetti for dinner, that sound alright?"

"That sounds great."

She smiled again. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen my Mom smile so easily or so often in such a short space of time; it was like she'd spent the last couple of days making up for years of half-grins. I guess the Californian sun can have that effect on people.

Or maybe it was love. I wouldn't know.

"You looking forward to your new school tomorrow?"

I shrugged uncommitidaly.

"Oh, don't be like that Jesse. I'm sure you're going to love it."

I shrugged again, wishing I could share my mom's enthusiasm. Truth be told, school and I have never got on that well. My grades are generally fine, but my tendency to miss at least one period a week has never gone down well for some reason. I didn't see why skiving here was going to be any less frowned upon than skiving in New York. And it's not like I could share my reasons.

But I would go, and I would go without complaining, because it wasn't as if I had an alternative. Compared to some things in my life, school was a hardship I could easily live with.

So I smiled at my mom and reassured her that it would be fine, I'd be fine, everything would be fine, and after a while she wandered happily away, encased in her little bubble of bliss.

I stood by the open window for a while after she left, staring out towards the sea. It was peaceful, watching the distant waves, listening to the occasional car pass along the road. It was unusual for me, such a moment of contended calm. I spent most of my time poised on edge, waiting for the next ghost to show up and throw my life into turmoil. Maybe it was a good sign; maybe it meant that mediation wasn't going to be such a big feature of life out here.

Or maybe, a little voice at the back of my mind nagged, forcing my brain to back-peddle through the conversation my mom had inadvertently interrupted and planting the image of a small, firey girl firmly in the forefront of my mind, maybe…not.

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_To be continued…_

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Reviews are love.


	4. The Pleasure to Have Known

**Title**: Kaleidoscope  
**Summary**: Once upon a time, there lived a girl who loved a ghost, and they lived happily ever after. This is not (quite) that story. Ghost!Suze, Human!Jesse. AU. JS.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, never mine, and I promise to put them back when I'm done.

**AN – **I am home from uni for Christmas and there is snow and my dog keeps trying to sit on me, even though she's WAY too big. All of these things make me happy.

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**Chapter 4 - **The Pleasure to Have Known

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The Junipero Serra Catholic Academy, grades K-12, was made co-educational in the eighties, and had, much to my relief, recently dropped its strict uniform policy. I tend to go through clothes with alarming speed, and having to repeatedly replace a school uniform due to any number of ghost-related rips and stains was just more trouble than it was worth. Fortunately however, the uniforms had been so unpopular that they, like the boys-only rule, had been abandoned, and though the pupils still couldn't wear jeans, they could wear just about anything else they wanted. Which suited me fine.

The Catholic thing, though, was going to be a problem. Not really a problem so much as an inconvenience. My mother never really bothered to raise me in any particular religion. My father's family had been Catholic, but religion had never played an important part in either of my parents' lives, and, needless to say, it had only served to confuse me. I mean, you would think I'd have a better grasp on religion than anybody, but the truth is, I haven't the slightest idea what happens to the ghosts I send off to wherever it is they're supposed to go after they die. All I know is, once I send them there, they do not come back. Not ever. The end.

So when my mother and I showed up at the Mission School's administrative office the Monday after my arrival in sunny California, I was more than a little taken aback to be confronted with a six foot Jesus hanging on a crucifix behind the secretary's desk.

I shouldn't have been surprised, though. My mom had pointed out the school from my room the previous evening, lit up by floodlights so that it was easily visible above the other lights of Carmel.

"That's the Mission dome," she'd said. "The dome covers the chapel."

Sarah happened to be hanging around – I'd noticed she did that a lot – and she launched into another one of her descriptions, this time of the Franciscans, who were members of a Roman Catholic religious order that followed the rule of St. Francis, approved in 1209. Father Junipero Serra, a Franciscan monk, was, according to Sarah, a tragically misunderstood historical figure. A controversial hero in the Catholic church, he had been considered for sainthood at one time, but, she explained, Native Americans questioned this move as "a general endorsement of the exploitative colonization tactics of the Spanish." Though Junipero Serra was known to have argued on behalf of the property rights and economic entitlement of converted Native Americans, he consistently advocated against their right to self-governance, and was a staunch supporter of corporal punishment, appealing to the Spanish government for the right to flog Indians.

When Sarah had finished this particular lecture, I just looked at her with one eyebrow raised and asked, "Photographic memory?"

She looked embarrassed. "Well," she said. "It's good to know the history of the place where you're living."

I filed this away for future reference. Sarah might be just the person I would need if Susannah showed up again.

Now, standing in the cool office of the ancient building Junipero Serra had constructed for the betterment of the natives in the area, I wondered how many ghosts I was going to encounter. That Serra guy had to have a bunch of Native Americans mad at him – particularly considering that corporal punishment thing – and I hadn't any doubt I was going to encounter all of them.

And yet, when my mom and I walked through the school's wide front archway into the courtyard around which the Mission had been constructed, I didn't see a single person who looked as if he or she didn't belong there. There were a few tourists snapping pictures of the impressive fountain, a gardener working diligently at the base of a palm tree – even at my new school there were palm trees – a priest walking in silent contemplation down the airy breezeway. It was a beautiful, restful place – especially for a building that was so old, and had to have seen so much death.

I couldn't understand it. Where were all the ghosts?

Maybe they were afraid to hang around the place. I mean, they had some pretty creepy artwork around. I've got nothing against religious art, but was it really necessary to portray the crucifixion so realistically?

Apparently, I was not alone in thinking so, since a boy who was slumped on a couch across from the one where my mom and I had been instructed to wait noticed the direction of my gaze and said, "He's supposed to weep tears of blood if any girl ever graduates from here a virgin."

I couldn't help letting out a little bark of laughter. My mother glared at me. The secretary, a plump middle-aged woman who looked as if something like that ought to have offended her deeply only rolled her eyes, and said, tiredly, "Oh, Adam."

Adam, who seemed to be about my age, looked at me with a perfectly serious face. "It's true," he said, gravely. "It happened last year. My sister." He dropped his voice conspiratorially. "She's adopted."

I laughed again, and my mother frowned at me. She had spent most of yesterday explaining to me that it had been really, really hard to convince the school to take me, especially since she couldn't produce any proof that I'd ever been baptized. In the end, they'd only let me in because of Andy, since all three of his girls went there. I imagine a sizeable donation had also played a part in my admittance, but my mother wouldn't tell me that. All she said was that I had better behave myself, and not hurl anything out of any

windows – even though I reminded her that that particular incident hadn't been my fault. I'd been fighting with a particularly violent young ghost who'd refused to quit haunting the locker rooms at my old school. Throwing him through that window had certainly gotten his attention, and convinced him to tread the path of righteousness ever after.

Of course, I'd told my mother that I'd been practicing my tennis swing indoors, and the racket had slipped from my hands – an especially unbelievable story, since a racket was never found.

It was as I was reliving this painful memory that a heavy wooden door opened, and a priest came out and said, "Mrs. Ackerman, what a pleasure to see you again. And this must be Jesse. Come in, won't you?" He ushered us into his office, then paused, and said to the boy on the couch, "Oh, no, Mr. McTavish. Not on the first day of a brand new year."

Adam shrugged. "What can I say? The broad hates me."

"Kindly do not refer to Sister Ernestine as a broad, Mr. McTavish. I will see to you in a moment."

We went in, and the principal, Father Dominic – that was his name – sat and chatted with us for a while, asking me how I liked California so far. I said I liked it fine, especially the ocean. Father Dominic expressed his sincere hope that I'd be happy at the Mission Academy, and went on to explain that even though I wasn't Catholic, I shouldn't feel unwelcome at Mass. There were, of course, Holy Days of Obligation, when the Catholic students would be required to leave their lessons behind and go to church. I could either join them, or stay behind in the empty classroom, whatever I chose.

I thought this was kind of funny, for some reason, but I managed to keep from laughing. I don't know many priests, but I thought this one might be all right – especially since he hadn't come down hard on the boy in the outer office who'd called that nun a broad – and I didn't want to offend him.

After Father Dominic had described the various offenses I could get expelled for – skipping class too many times, dealing drugs on campus, the usual stuff – he asked me if I had any questions. I didn't. Then he asked my mother if she had any questions. She didn't. So then Father Dominic stood up and said, "Fine then. I'll say goodbye to you, and Jesse can get started with his classes."

My mom waved me good-bye, and reminded me to find Georgie at three, since she was in charge of driving me home - once again, a woeful lack of public transportation meant that I had to bum rides to and from school with my stepsisters. Then she was gone, and Father Dominic was introducing me to Adam again, who was apparently going to show me to my first class with the solemn promise to return immediately for his reprimand.

"He's alright, really, Father Dominic," the brown-haired boy explained as we crossed the courtyard. It was another glorious day, the early morning mist already burnt away by the sun. I'd left the windows open last night, only to find that they'd been gently shut again when I woke up this morning, which I thought was sweet of my mom, looking out for me like that.

At least, I _hope _it was my mom. Now that I think about it … but no, I hadn't seen Susannah since yesterday afternoon. It had definitely been my mom who'd shut my windows.

"I mean, he's a bit, you know, religious, but he's no where near as bad as some of the others round here. Where're you from, anyway? Jesse, wasn't it?"

"New York." I said with a nod.

"Never been. Anything I'm missing out on?"

"Not really," I said with a laugh. I liked Adam already; he was easy going, with a good sense of humor. I hoped I'd have a few classes with him.

He stopped in front of a partially open door, tapped smartly on it and then, without waiting for an answer, stepped inside.

"New student, Mr. Walden." he announced. "And I gotta go back to the Father's office."

A large, heavily bearded man appeared behind Adam in the doorway. "Off you go, then, McTavish." he chived, and Adam disappeared back the way we had come with a final friendly wave.

"DeSilva, is it?" my new teacher inquired.

"That's right sir. Jesse DeSilva."

"Nice to have you with us," he said, in his big, booming voice.

I stuck out one hand, which was promptly engulfed. Mr. Walden didn't look much like a teacher - more like a lumberjack, with the largest hands I had ever seen. He practically had to flatten himself against the wall to give me room to slip past him into his classroom.

He introduced me to the class, and made me tell them where I came from. I told them, and they all stared at me blankly. I began to feel sweat pricking the back of my neck. I have to tell you, sometimes I prefer the company of the undead to the company of my

peers. But Mr. Walden was a good guy. He only made me stand there a minute, under all those stares, and then he told me to take a seat.

This sounds like a simple thing, right? Just go and take a seat. But you see, there were two seats. One was next to this really pretty tanned girl, with thick, curly honey-blond hair. The other was way in the back, next to a girl with hair so white, and skin so pink, she could only be an albino.

No, I am not kidding. An _albino_.

Two things influenced my decision. One was that when I saw the seat in the back, I also happened to see that the windows, directly behind that seat, looked out across the school parking lot. Okay, not such an inspiring view, you might say. But beyond the parking lot was the sea. I am not kidding. This school, my new school, had a view of the Pacific that was even better than the one in my bedroom since the school as so much closer to the beach. You could actually see the waves from my homeroom's windows. I wanted to sit as close to the window as possible.

The second reason I sat there was simple: I didn't want to take the seat by the tan girl and have the albino girl think I'd done it because I didn't want to sit near anyone as weird looking as she was. Stupid, right? Like she'd even care what I did. But I didn't even hesitate. I saw the sea, I saw the albino, and I went for it.

As soon as I sat down, a girl a few seats away turned to stare at me, looking completely confused, and said, under her breath but perfectly audibly, "Why'd he go and sit by the freak?"

"I'm sorry," I said, not bothering to keep my voice down at all, "I didn't quite hear you. What did you say?"

She flushed, evidently unaware that I'd overheard.

"Nothing," she muttered, not meeting my gaze.

"I know slang terms out here are different to the ones I'm used to. I assume freak hasn't the same derogatory connotations to you that I associate with it?" I asked with an air of polite confusion.

Mr. Walden had turned around to write something on the board, but the sound of my voice stopped him. Everyone was looking at me now, their expressions ranging from incredulous to amused.

"What?" blinked the girl. I'm not sure she understood half the words I'd used. Which was, of course, why I'd used them. Around us, peaople were whisphering and staring openly, and the albino's scalp – which was plainly visible beneath the white of her hair – had turned a deep magenta. Mr. Walden had to call everyone to order, and when people ignored him, he slammed his fist down on his desk and told us that if we had so damned much to say, we could say it in a thousand word essay on the battle at Bladensburg during the War of 1812, double-spaced, and due on his desk first thing tomorrow morning.

Oh well. Good thing I wasn't in school to make friends.

* * *

And yet I did. Make friends, I mean.

I didn't try to. I didn't even really want to. I mean, I've not really had friends since I was thirteen. Haven't needed them. And it wasn't like I didn't come without baggage. I really didn't think anybody here was going to like me, anyway, not after having been assigned a thousand word essay because of what happened when I sat down, and especially not after what happened when we were informed that it was time for second period – there was no bell system at the Mission School, we changed class on the hour, and had five minutes to get to where we were going. No sooner had Mr. Walden dismissed us than the albino girl turned around in her seat and asked, her purple eyes glowing furiously behind the tinted lenses of her glasses, "Am I supposed to be grateful to you, or something, for what you did to Debbie?"

"You," I said, standing up, "aren't supposed to be anything, as far as I'm concerned."

She stood up, too. "But that's why you did it, right? Defended the albino? Because you felt sorry for me?"

"Of course not," I said, picking up my bag. Debbie had swept up her books and practically run for the door the minute Mr. Walden had dismissed us. She and a bunch of other girls, including the pretty tanned one who'd had the empty seat next to her, were whispering amongst themselves and casting me surreptitious, confused looks.

The albino girl said, fiercely, "I can fight my own battles, you know. I don't need you to help me, New York."

I shrugged. "Fine with me, Carmel."

She couldn't help smiling then. When she did, she revealed a mouthful of braces that winked as brightly as the sea outside the window. "It's CeeCee," she said.

"What's CeeCee?"

"My name. I'm CeeCee." She stuck out a milky-white hand, the nails of which were painted a violent orange. "Welcome to the Mission Academy."

At nine o'clock, Mr. Walden had dismissed us. By nine-oh-two, CeeCee had introduced me to twenty other people, most of whom trotted after me as we moved to our next class, mostly staring in silent awe. It was kinda uncomfortable. Only CeeCee, who appeared to be the leader of their little pack, seemed unphased by my presence. Editor of the school paper, the _Mission News_, which she called "more of a literary review than an actual newspaper," CeeCee had been in earnest when she'd informed me she did not need me to fight her battles for her. She had plenty of ammunition of her own, including a pretty packed arsenal of verbal zingers and an extremely serious work ethic. Practically the first thing she asked me – after she got over being mad at me – was if I'd be interested in writing a piece for her paper.

"Nothing fancy," she said, airily. "Maybe just an essay comparing East Coast and West Coast teen culture. I'm sure you must see a lot of differences between us and your friends back in New York. Whaddaya say? My readers would be plenty interested – especially girls like Kelly and Debbie. Maybe you could slip in something about how on the East Coast being tan is like a faux pas."

Then she laughed, not sounding evil, exactly, but definitely not innocent, either. But that, I soon realized, was CeeCee, all bright smiles – made brighter by those wicked looking braces – and bouncy good humor. She was as famous, apparently, for her wise-cracking as for her big horselaugh, which sometimes bubbled out of her when she couldn't control it, and rang out with unabashed joy, and was inevitably hushed by the prissy novices who acted as hall monitors, keeping us from bothering the tourists who came to snap pictures of Junipero Serra being fawned over by those poor bronze Indian women.

The rest of the morning was uneventful. CeeCee appeared to be in all my classes, and led me round like an extremely talkative guide dog, filling me in on the life story of everybody we passed. When we were dismissed for lunch, she practically leapt out of her seat and began to chivvy me towards the door.

"Come on, come on, hurry up. There's someone I want you to meet."

I didn't think much of that, since CeeCee appeared to be desperate for me to meet every person in the school before three thirty, until we were outside approaching a wooden picnic bench and I caught sight of a familiar face standing beside it, scanning the crowds.

"Is it true?" he exclaimed the moment we were within earshot. "Is what they are saying really true? That a few mere words and you had Debbie Mancuso practically in tears? Sir, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"Shut up, Adam." said CeeCee with a laugh, whacking him playfully over the head and leading us to a patch of grass to sit and eat lunch. "What did I tell you about not scaring people when you first meet them?"

"Oh, Jesse and I are old friends," Adam assured her with an easy grin, flopping down onto the grass beside her. "Or did your stunning journalistic skills fail to notice it was I who escorted him to your homeroom this morning?"

CeeCee frowned; evidently, she had failed to remember this point, and she was not pleased. CeeCee was the sort of person who liked to remember everything.

I sat next to them, enjoying listening to their easy banter but not really joining in. My attention was more focused on the reemergence of my stepsisters. Conflicting schedules meant I apparently didn't share any classes with Mel, who was also a junior, something I couldn't help but be slightly relieved about. Especially when I saw her surrounded by a crowd of tanned, shiny-haired girls that included Debbie. Though I couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt; if they were friends, perhaps I ought to have been a bit more polite.

Georgie and Sarah shared my lunch period, too. It was interesting to observe them in their native environment. I was pleased to see that I had been correct in my estimation of their characters. Sarah sat with a small group of extremely nerdy-looking kids, most of whom wore glasses, and all of whom were watching their football tossing peers with great wariness. Mel and her shiny-haired friends were crowded round a picnic bench with a bunch of jocks.

Georgie was the most interesting, if only because I had struggled most to pin her character down. She sat with a group of seven or eight other seniors, who ranged from a tall guy wearing a football jacket with his arm round a shy looking, slightly plump brown-haired girl to a geeky, pale girl with thick glasses and frizzy hair.

"Oh, they're a funny lot, your sister's friends." said CeeCee when she saw where I was looking. "Caused outrage in the social order when they first started, you know, hanging out publicly together. Cal – he's the guy in the football jacket – started going out with Molly about eighteen months ago. The jock and the nerdy girl. It was like our own High School Musical."

"How does Georgie fit in?" I asked, curious. CeeCee shrugged.

"I dunno. She and Molly have been friends for years, I guess. Jamie, the blonde haired guy, he's Cal's best friend. The tiny girl is Ellie, and the guy next to her is Mark. She's our resident star, you know, leads in all the plays, phenomenal voice, the works. Mark's your average eighteen year old goof."

"Hey!" interrupted Adam. "I object to your tone of voice! I happen to be an average goof."

"What about the other girl?" I asked quickly, before CeeCee could be distracted into another argument.

"The nerdy, miserable looking one?" said Adam. "That's Abigail."

"It's quite sad, really," continued CeeCee in her matter-of-fact tone. "Her little sister died during the summer. Hannah, I think her name was. She was a freshman. I don't think they were that close, but still, you know?"

"How'd she die?" I asked, despite myself.

"Car crash." said Adam around a large mouthful of sandwich. "Driver was drunk. He died too."

"Huh." I said, trying to appear nonchalant as I gazed across to where Abigail was now staring at the floor, fiddling with an empty crisp packet. Suddenly, she looked up and straight across to where I was openly staring. I smiled weakly and ducked my head, embarrassed. Next time I chanced a glance across, she had her back to us and appeared deep in conversation with the guy CeeCee had named as Jamie.

I turned back to CeeCee and Adam, trying to look like I was paying attention to their conversation. Inside, however, my mind was a hundred miles away.

Maybe Abigail's little sister had been happy. Maybe she'd died with nothing left undone, and moved on readily to whatever came next.

Yeah. I should be so lucky.

* * *

_To be continued…_

* * *

Reviews are love.


	5. Sad because you're On Your Own

**Title**: Kaleidoscope  
**Summary**: Once upon a time, there lived a girl who loved a ghost, and they lived happily ever after. This is not (quite) that story. Ghost!Suze, Human!Jesse. AU. JS.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, never mine, and I promise to put them back when I'm done.

**AN **– I love my laptop dearly. It has been a faithful partner for the past four and a half years, the only companion to stay with me no matter where I go. But sometimes it is bloody irritating. I've been at war with the virus for the past two weeks; every time I think I've got it, it springs back up again. Hence a lack of both writing and updating. Hopefully things are sorted now; here is a slightly longer chapter to make up for the delay.

In my desire to get this chapter up as quickly as possible, it has not been as checked and nit-picked as usual. I apologise for any errors.

* * *

**Chapter Five - Sad (**because you're**) On Your Own**

* * *

The week passed in a mostly uneventful fashion. I kept my eyes peeled, but saw no sign of either Abigail's little sister or Susannah, and tried to convince myself that it was only relief at the absent of the fist that crossed my mind, and not disappointment at the second. By Friday I found myself settling into the new routine; hauling Georgie out of bed each morning, meeting CeeCee and Adam for lunch, homework and Andy's amazing cooking each evening. It all seemed far too good to be true.

Which, of course, it was.

It was actually my mother who inadvertently started the downward spiral of the life I was carefully constructing for myself – my loving, well-meaning mother who wanted nothing more than for me to have that life. She did it quite innocently by announcing over dinner on Friday evening that she was going spend the next morning exploring the older parts of Carmel, and did anyone want to come with her? Georgie grumbled something about work and an essay, Andy wanted to put up some shelves in his workshop, and Mel merely looked insulted at the very idea of being asked to go anywhere that was not the mall. But Sarah seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea of spending time with her stepmother, and I figured I might as well explore a bit more of the town that was to be my home.

We spent a peaceful hour or so wandering through the pedestrianised streets, probably looking distinctly touristy but not really caring. But in the end, my mom's habit of spending far to much time staring at paintings and quilts in craft shops began to wear on even Sarah; her knowledge of the arts and crafts movement of California had only lasted us through the first two shops. We were leaving the fifth when a small, slightly shabby looking shop at the end of the street caught my eye. My mom, seeing my distraction, followed my gaze and laughed.

"I should have known. Go on. I'll meet you in an hour."

I grinned. "Coming, Sarah?" I asked, nodding towards the store. Sarah nodded enthusiastically and fell into step besides me.

"It's not that I don't like your mom," she promised me seriously. "It's just I hadn't quite realised the extent of her love of crafts."

"It's alright," I assured her. "Another hour or so of gazing at over-priced bits of wood, and she'll be normal again. Best just to leave her to it."

I pushed open the shop door, causing a bell above my head to tinkle merrily, and took a deep breath. _Books_. Old books. It was a smell I could never tire of.

Sarah evidently knew the shop well; she disappeared from my side with the intent of one who knows exactly what she is doing. It was a tiny shop, made even smaller by the fact that every available space was piled high with books or shelves holding books or chairs covered in books. If there was order, I couldn't work it out. I walked slowly among the shelves, tailing my fingers along the spines as I passed, enjoying the peace and calm that only a bookstore can provide.

The till was at the back of the store, an ancient looking device set up on a rickety table, behind which sat a vaguely familiar looking girl with light brown hair, her nose buried in a very battered paperback. The sudden creak of floorboard beneath my feet caused her to jerk her head up suddenly, and, for the second time in a week, I found myself staring at Georgie's friend Abigail.

"Hey," I greeted her neutrally. "Sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you."

Abigail shook her head quickly, looking slightly confused. "No, no, it's fine…I didn't realise customers had come in."

She was gazing at me with a slightly furrowed forehead, evidently trying to work out where she recognised me from. A moment later, it clicked, and her frown cleared.

"You're Georgie's new stepbrother." she said simply, stating the fact.

I nodded. "Jesse."

"I'm Abigail."

"I know," I confessed. Abigail's smile faded.

"Yeah," she sighed miserably. "Of course. I saw you staring the other lunchtime. I must be hot gossip at the moment."

I shook my head quickly. "Oh no, not really." I lied badly. "I was just curious about Georgie's friends. I am sorry about your sister, though."

Abigail laughed hollowly. "Isn't everyone?"

I shrugged awkwardly, unsure of what to say to that, and after a moment Abigail shook her head.

"Sorry, that was mean. I didn't mean to be rude. I've just been hearing the same thing from everyone from my best friends to complete strangers for the past month."

"I'm sorry," I said again, making Abigail laugh.

"Oh, alright then." she sighed with a grin. "If you insist."

I smiled. I liked Abigail; she seemed happier here than she had done in school, and we fell into an easy conversation about books we had read, arguing good-naturedly about our respective tastes, when I noticed we were no longer alone.

Unless I was very much mistaken, Abigail's little sister had decided to join us.

And she did not look happy. I trailed off mid-sentence, too surprised at her expression to remember what I had been saying.

Both sisters's looked at me, one in confusion, the other in irritation.

"Sorry," I apologised, keeping my eyes carefully on Abigail. I didn't want her sister to know I was aware of her presence if I could help it. "Completely forgot what I was saying."

Abigail laughed. "It's alright. Hey, Sarah."

I blinked, momentarily confused, until Sarah appeared at my shoulder, clutching a pile of books.

"Hey Abi," she greeted, obviously well acquainted with her sister's friend. The pair chatted about Georgie and school for a few minutes, but I wasn't really listening. I couldn't help taking surreptitious glances towards the ghost on the chair out of the corner of my eye. Her expression had slowly morphed from one of anger to a concentrated glare, and her gaze shifted slightly, moving from her sister to the wall behind her, which, like every other wall in the shop, was lined with shelves packed with books.

I saw what was going to happen moments before it did. It was like déjà vu; the books vibrating, an angry ghost…except this time I'd no idea if the ghost was aware of what she was doing, nor if a simple warning was going to stop her.

I reacted instinctively, seizing Abigail with one hand and dragging her out the way, not caring that I sent the table and till flying in the process, while I shoved Sarah backward with the other. A moment later, the entire shelf came crashing down where Abigail had been standing. The ghost glared at where her sister lay, dazed but apparently unhurt, and then turned to scowl at me. For a moment our eyes locked and confusion flickered across her face, before she disappeared completely.

"Are you alright?" I asked, looking across at Sarah, who was leaning against a shelf, rubbing her glasses and looking dazed.

"Fine…" she said slowly. "I'll just sit here for a moment, if you don't mind."

I turned to Abigail. "You?"

Abigail nodded shakily. "I think so. Nothing broken anyway. But what on earth…those shelves have been up for years…"

"Here," I offered quickly, trying to distract both myself and her, "We'll help you sort it out."

I began to gather up the fallen books, but Abigail was shaking her head.

"No, no, don't bother," she said, sounding suddenly weary. "I'll give Mr Jenkins a ring, the shelves will need fixing back up anyway. God, I'm beginning to think someone's got it in for me…"

I glanced at her sharply. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, it's silly. I've just been being a bit clumsy recently. My bedroom window broke, my rear tire blew out on the way home one evening…I guess bad luck really does come all at once."

I said nothing; I had my own opinions on that, not that they were likely to be believed. Instead, I waited with Abigail until the mysterious Mr Jenkins, apparently the shop owner, arrived, power tools in hand. I didn't think Hannah would return too soon – that sort of attack could take it out of a ghost, especially a new one – but I wanted to be sure. Eventually, though, it was time to meet my mom, and so Sarah and I said our goodbyes, extracting from Abigail a promise to stay away from heavy objects, the edges of tall buildings and anything that wasn't firmly attached to the ground. I was only half joking.

Sarah was practically bouncing for the rest of the day. Once the shock had worn off she was insuppressible, repeating the whole story to my mom all the way home and disappearing into her room to email her friends the moment we got back. She recounted the entire thing all over again at dinner for the sake of her father, Mel and Georige, while I tried not to look too embarrassed; listening to her version you'd have thought I'd single-handedly saved the entire shop from destruction. Andy grinned and said "good save, kid", rewarding me with an extra dollop of his admittedly excellent macaroni and cheese; Mel, who was till struggling over how to treat me following my apparent snub to her friend earlier in the week, appeared to be mostly disinterested; Georgie, on the other hand, seemed truly worried about her friend.

"Poor Abi," she sighed when Sarah finally paused for breath. "She's having a really rough time anyway at the moment, the last thing she needs is for that blasted shop to start falling apart around her."

"Is she a friend of yours?" my mom asked, bonding with her eldest stepdaughter.

Georgie nodded through a mouthful of food and swallowed.

"Yep. Known her since we were kids. Her little sister was killed in a car accident a couple of months ago."

My mom put one hand over her mouth.

"That's terrible," she said sadly. "Her poor parents."

"Yeah, they all took it pretty hard. Abi's sort of trying to hold things together, I think."

"What was her sister like?" I asked carefully, trying to find out more about the rogue ghost without appearing to be asking questions that were too strange.

"Average fourteen year old kid, really. She and Abi weren't close, so I didn't know her that well."

Average fourteen year old who just happened to be trying to kill her older sister. Sure.

I spent the rest of the meal chewing silently, not really listening to the chatter around me, to caught up in my own thoughts. I drifted upstairs the minute the table was clear, avoiding the rest of my family by citing large amounts of homework. But though I did sit at my desk for a few hours, staring blankly at the geometry chapter in front of me, my mind wasn't focused on school. I listened as the house went to sleep around me, heading to bed one by one, Georgie last of all, returning from her shift at the cinema.

You don't need a whole lot of tools to do a mediation. I mean, all that stuff about crosses and holy water, I guess you need those things to kill a vampire – and I can tell you right now that I have never in my life met a vampire, and I've spent _a lot _of time in graveyards – but for ghosts, well, you sort of have to wing it.

Sometimes, though, to get the job done right, you have to do a little breaking and entering. For that you need some tools. I highly recommend just using stuff you find on site so you don't have a lot to carry. But I do have a tool belt with a flashlight and some screwdrivers and pliers and stuff, and dark clothes, obviously. Not black, though – the whole black-doesn't-show-in-the-dark thing is a huge misconception. Grey works much better.

I snuck downstairs, carefully avoiding the creaking steps, and slipped out the front door. Having Andy as a stepfather was proving to be useful – our front door back in New York had creaked every time you opened it, but this one was silent. No one would even know I was gone.

There were a couple of bikes in the garage, evidently little used but serviceable enough, and within ten minutes I was freewheeling down the hill into Carmel. I'd memorized the route to Abigail's house earlier in the evening – a quick thumb Georgie's address book while she was at work had yielded all the information I needed. There was something quite liberating about speeding through the quiet town, the cold sea air wiping past as I maneuvered around potholes and across the intersection, still ridiculously busy considering it was close to one in the morning.

Abigail lived in a quiet side street on the outskirts of Carmel, at the end of a row of modest, two story houses. I stopped on the pavement outside and regarded the building thoughtfully. This was the part I hadn't really thought out properly; how to get Hannah's attention without waking the entire family. I suddenly caught sight of the glow of materilisation out of the corner of my eye and turned to face it, surprised. Surely it couldn't be that easy.

It wasn't.

Susannah was frowning at me, her arms folded stiffly.

"You should be in bed," she snapped. "It's one o'clock in the morning."

"Who are you, my mother?" I asked with a roll of my eyes.

"No, of course not, but I imagine she would not be happy if she knew you were out at this time."

"What do you know about my mother?" I said with a glare, turning my full attention to her. Things concerning my mom were a bit of a sore point.

"I know she is a nice lady, and I like her very much. She loves you, and it would upset her if she were to find out you were putting yourself in danger like this."

I had not argument for that – it was, after all, true – so I changed tactic slightly instead.

"How did you know where I was, anyway?" I demanded.

Susannah shook her head in irritation.

"I was worried when you weren't in your room, so I…"

"Hold up," I said quickly, raising both hands as if to hold off her stream of words. "What were you doing up there? I thought I'd made it clear that you were to stay out."

"I was closing your window." she said hotly, her hands clenched into fists by her side as she argued. "Every night you leave it open, and the mist gets in, and in the morning you would be cold…"

Her voice trailed off, suddenly embarrassed, and my irritation faded with it.

"Look," I sighed, determined to make peace again. "I'll be fine. I've done this a million times. I'll sort this out and be home before anyone knows I'm gone."

"You are angry," said Susannah slowly with a shake of her head. "About what happened at the bookstore, that she nearly hurt your sister and the other girl."

"How do you know what happened? Are you stalking me?" I demanded, all attempts at peace-making forgotten.

"Of course not. I heard your family talking about it when you were having dinner. I won't follow you unless you ask me to…"

I began to interrupt, about to point out the current evidence to the contrary, but she raised one hand to silence me and continued determinedly.

"_Or_ if I think you're in danger, or about to do something stupid. So maybe I should follow you all the time."

I had to laugh at that. She was so matter-of-fact, frowning slightly as she thought through what she was promising. I had never met anyone who talked so fast in my life.

The tension was broken, and I had to admit she had a point.

"Ok." I agreed. "Yeah, I'm angry. She could have killed Sarah and Abi, and me too for that matter. But I'm not going to do anything stupid, I promise. I just want to talk to her, once I've figured out how to get her attention."

Susannah looked at me thoughtfully for a minute. "You think she's in there?" she asked.

I shrugged. "That's my best guess."

She nodded, once, suddenly business-like, and disappeared. I blinked.

"Susannah?" I hissed, but there was no reply. Ghosts were weird like that – popping in and out of existence at a moment's notice. Sighing, I turned my attention back to the problem at hand: namely, how to get hold of Hannah. It wasn't like I could just ring her up, after all. I didn't like breaking into houses if the owners were inside – for some reason that tended to upset people, and with Abi and Georgie being friends, that sort of thing was bound to make it back to my mom – so I was left staring at the outside thoughtfully.

My thought process was interrupted for the second time in ten minutes by the glow of a materializing ghost. Susannah was back, and this time she was not alone.

"Hannah, this is Jesse DeSliva." she said pleasantly, as if she introduced ghosts to their mediators every day of the week. "He's a mediator. He's going to help you."

Hannah glared at my smile. "You were in the shop today," she said accusingly. "With my sister."

"When you tried to kill us, you mean?" I asked archingly, raising one eyebrow.

Hannah had the decency to look slightly ashamed. "I didn't mean for the whole stack to fall like that. Just the one above the till."

"Ah, so it was only your sister you wanted to hurt? That's alright then, obviously."

Hannah stamped her foot – actually stamped her foot! I thought girls only did that in movies – and shouted at me, the cry of teenagers everywhere.

"Shut up! You don't understand!"

"Ok, then," I said, taking a breath to force some calm into both myself and the proceedings. "Why don't you try and make me? And then I'll try and help you work out why you're still here."

Throughout this entire exchange, Susannah had been looking around nervously.

"Perhaps first it would be a good idea to go somewhere a little less visible?" she hazarded quickly. "It would probably not be a good idea for anyone to look outside and see Jesse apparently talking with thin air."

She had a point. The street Hannah had lived on was well lit by streetlights – anyone glancing out their bedroom window could have seen me. It was ridiculous; I've been a mediator all my life, I've dealt with hundreds of ghosts, and suddenly I'm acting like a newbie. Maybe I was still jetlagged.

"This way," said Hannah, suddenly helpful though still sullen. She led us to the end of her road and down a small footpath that opened up into a small kids park.

"Ok," I said, flopping down onto the grass and patting the patch next to me. "Explain. Why are you trying to kill your sister?"

Hannah sat a few feet away, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them, looking suddenly very young. Susannah perched on a bench; I guess they didn't really flop on the grass much in the 1850s.

"It's not _fair_," moaned Hannah softly. "I don't _want_ to be dead."

"Most people don't." I agreed gently. "At least, not the ones I meet. But there's nothing I can do about that – I don't decide who lives and dies. My jobs just to sort out those who left with unfinished business."

"What do you mean?" asked Hannah, confused.

"Not everyone becomes a ghost when they die. Most don't, thankfully, or I'd have my work cut out. Only those who've got stuff left undone or unsaid stay behind, so I have to help them work out what, and then do it so they can move on."

"What about her?" She jabbed a thumb in Susannah's direction. "She looks like she's been here a while. Why can't you help her?"

I glanced helplessly in Susannah's direction – I didn't know why she was still here, after all, and as long as she refrained from trying to kill family members, I wasn't going to press her too hard.

"My case is…complicated." Explained Susannah, looking slightly offended at the thumb jab.

Hannah looked unconvinced, so I pressed on before she could question further.

"Look, Hannah, can you think of any reason why you're still here? Anything you need or want doing?"

Hannah shrugged. "I dunno. I'm fourteen! I'm not meant to be dead!"

"I know, I know," I said soothingly. "It's not fair. But there's nothing I can do, I can only help you move on. Why are you trying to hurt your sister?"

"Because she doesn't care!" shouted Hannah. "She never did! And now I'm dead and she's just forgotten I even exist!"

Ah. Bingo.

"Are you sure, Hannah?" I asked gently. "She seems pretty upset whenever I see her."

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Oh, that's how Abi _always_ looks. She's pretty miserable most of the time. She's more cheerful now than she was before I died! She's my big sister, she's meant to care about me, not ignore me when I'm alive and forget all about me when I'm dead!"

"And you think that killing her will mean the two of you will be stuck as ghosts together, and she'll be forced to pay attention to you?" asked Susannah frankly.

I stifled a groan – from the look on Hannah's face, it was obvious that she hadn't been considering that until now.

"No, I mean…can I do that?"

"No," I said quickly, glaring at Susannah. "No, you can't. Chances are your sister wouldn't become a ghost anyway. Like I said, it doesn't happen to everyone."

Hannah actually looked quite disappointed at that.

"I figured it would be like in the movies, see." She explained morosely, talking half to herself. "You know, when people have near death experiences and see dead family members. But every time I try, she never does. _You_ do, though."

This last part was added almost accusingly, as if it were my fault she could talk to me and not her sister.

"I already explained," I said tiredly. "I'm a mediator. I see all ghosts. I don't know how, or why, but I do. I can't make Abigail see you. I'm sorry."

Hannah pouted. "Fat lot of good you are, then." She snapped, and disappeared in a swirl of anger.

"Well, that went well," commented Susannah levelly.

"Thanks," I groaned, hauling myself to my feet and beginning to head towards the exit. "That was really helpful."

"Sorry," she said, sounding truly apologetic. "I didn't mean to give her ideas. I forget what it's like, being a new ghost."

I sighed. I couldn't be cross at her, really – she was right, she'd been a ghost so long she probably _had_ forgotten being newly dead, as it were, never mind actually alive.

"It's alright. I don't think she actually wants to kill her, so maybe knowing that she can will cause her to stop being so violent."

But my words were hollow – I didn't believe them any more than Susannah seemed to.

"What will you do next?" she asked instead, curious.

I looked at her again.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" I said suddenly, slightly surprised.

Susannah looked slightly embarrassed. "A bit," she admitted. "It's nice, having someone to talk to again."

I shook my head, amused, and turned my attention back to her previous question.

"I don't know." I sighed, thinking out loud. "I guess I need to try and talk to her again, when she's calmed down a bit. Maybe Abigail too. But I don't want her to get too suspicious, and it won't warm me to Georgie if I start asking her friend uncomfortable questions…Not to mention I need to try and keep an eye on Abigail and make sure Hannah doesn't hurt her. I can't really follow her around all the time, though…"

Susannah listened in silence to my rambling thoughts.

"It seems to me," she said when I had finished, "that being a mediator is an awful lot of work for one person."

I shrugged and nodded. "Yep. I've never met another one, though."

"Really? Not one?"

"Nope. I don't even know if there are others. I mean, you've never met one, right?"

"Not until you." agreed Susannah.

We walked in silence for a while, through the dark streets and along the coast towards Pine Crest. I spent the time turning Hannah's words over and over in my mind, trying to make sense of them. I'd encountered plenty of angry ghosts in my time, but their reasoning was usually far more straightforward – they blamed someone for their death, or they thought they shouldn't be the one who was dead in the first place. I'd never met a ghost who was upset because someone else was apparently _not_ upset by their death.

I don't know if Susannah had figured out why I was so quiet, or if she was just thinking along the same lines, but she suddenly broke the silence and quietly said "It must be hard to accept that those you love cannot forever wallow in sadness at your memory after you've died. Especially when you're so young."

I looked at her. "Are you speaking from experience?"

She smiled a little in the moonlight. "Not really. Things were different when I died."

"I guess we don't really know what happened between Abigail and Hannah. Maybe she has every right to be hurt and resentful."

But picturing quiet, shy Abigail sitting amongst the shelves of the bookstore, I really couldn't imagine how.

"Toward her sister, maybe she does. But not toward _you_. She had no right to be so angry at you, or to try and hurt you and Sarah."

She sounded suddenly so cross that I thought it best to change the subject, remembering the flying books incident from my first day.

I thought about what she'd said earlier, about how things had been different when she died.

"How'd you die, anyway?"

Susannah didn't say anything right away, and I realized I could have offended her. Ghosts don't really like talking about how they died, I've noticed. Sometimes they can't even remember. Car crash victims usually haven't the slightest clue what happened to them.

"Sorry." I added quickly. "That was rude."

"No, no, it's alright." Susannah assured me, before falling silent again.

She was quiet for a while, and I figured she wasn't going to tell me. We had reached the end of the gravel drive leading up to the house, and she was looking straight

ahead, up at the building – the house where she'd died, the house she was destined to haunt until … well, until she resolved whatever it was that was holding her to this world.

The moon was still out, pretty high in the sky now, and I could see Susannah's face clearly, almost as if it were day. She looked like she was thinking, forehead creased and eyebrows scrunched.

"You know what? Never mind. If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to – "

"No," she said again. "It's alright."

"I was just a bit curious, that's all," I said. "But if it's too personal…"

"It isn't too personal." We had reached the front porch by now, and she reached out one hand to rest it against the wooden posts. "You know this house wasn't always a family home. It was once a hotel. Well, more like a boarding house, really, than a hotel."

"Were staying here as a guest?"

"No. My parents owned it. I used to help with cooking and cleaning, looking after the guests."

"And …" I tried to prompt her.

She shrugged. "And then I died."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged again, a habit I was fairly certain she must have picked up from one of my stepsisters, since I don't think they shrugged in the 1850s. "I was too, for a while. But then I got used to it."

I wanted to ask her more – about her family, about the people who had lived in the house, but she was looking at me with a small smile, as if amused by something I wasn't aware of, and I suddenly found myself leaning forward, almost involuntarily, as it…well, as if I were about to kiss her.

This was new, and for a moment I froze, shocked. Luckily, before I could do anything more than register the thought, she spoke.

"It's late. You need to sleep. Go to bed. I'll keep an eye on Hannah."

"I…what?" I blinked, non-plussed at her suddenly decisive tone.

"I will follow Hannah, and make sure she does not get into any more trouble. You will go to bed and sleep, and tomorrow think about what to do next."

"Really? You can do that?"

"She won't even know I'm there," promised Susannah, smiling again. "Good night Jesse."

She gave me a gentle push towards the steps – although she was far smaller than me, ghosts possess almost supernatural strength, and I suspect that, had she wanted, she could have propelled me into the house and up to my room.

Instead, she stood by the front steps, watching as I climbed them and pushed open the front door. When I glanced back as I slipped inside, she had gone.

* * *

_To be continued…_

* * *

Reviews are love.


	6. Lend Me Your Ears

**Title**: Kaleidoscope  
**Summary**: Once upon a time, there lived a girl who loved a ghost, and they lived happily ever after. This is not (quite) that story. Ghost!Suze, Human!Jesse. AU. JS.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, never mine, and I promise to put them back when I'm done.

**AN **– Sorry for the delayed posting; real life's been unforeseeably hectic recently, and there were a few things about this chapter I wanted to straighten out. Have some CeeCee-Adam banter as a peace-offering.

* * *

**Chapter Six - Lend Me Your Ears**

* * *

I didn't see Susannah at all the next day, nor the one after. I spent Sunday concentrating on entirely non-ghost related matters, mainly homework, and Monday was, of course, school. I saw Abi briefly at lunchtime; she waved at me from where she sat with Georgie and some other seniors, no sign of Hannah or Susannah.

"Why," asked Adam curiously, "is Abigail Brown waving at you?"

CeeCee swivelled round to stare, apparently sensing a story.

I shrugged nonchalantly. "We met over the weekend," I explained. "She was working in the bookshop in town."

"Huh," said CeeCee, eyebrows furrowed in evident disbelief. "Poor girl. Like she's not got enough on her plate without every female in school baying for her blood."

It was my turn to be confused. "What do you mean?"

"I _mean_," sighed CeeCee, with the air of one explaining something very simple to a child, "That you, Jesse, are basically the most exciting thing to happen around here in months. Not only are you from New York but it turns out you're also nice, friendly to everyone, able to wither Debbie with a glance, and, to cap it all, really quite good looking."

"People think that about me?" I blinked.

"Utterly gorgeous, I believe, were the words Kelly Prescott used in the ladies on your first day. Frankly, I was more surprised that she knew the word _utterly_. Anyway, half the girls in our year already believe themselves in love with you, and the other half aren't far behind. If you've got your eye on Abigail, well, good for you, she's pretty sensible as far as girls round here go, but it will break a lot of hearts, and girls don't deal well with that. Oddly, they'll blame Abigail rather than you."

"I've not got my eye on Abigail!" I spluttered. "I mean, I just chatted to her a bit on Saturday…"

"Mhmm," agreed CeeCee kindly. "I'm sure. Anyway, the problem is, Jesse, that you've upset the balance. You're hot, but you're not a jock, and you've proven to be pretty intelligent. You've been nice to everyone you've met so far, social status notwithstanding, and so suddenly it's not just the Kellys and Heathers who are hoping for a chance; the more nerdy sectors of our society have got their hopes up, too. You're probably the most sought after guy in school at the moment."

"What about you?" I demanded.

CeeCee laughed. "Sorry, Jesse. You're not really my type."

I put one hand to my chest, pretending to be deeply wounded. "That hurt, Webb."

CeeCee laughed again. "I'm sorry. It just wouldn't work, you know? Better we end it here."

"If we must," I grinned, relieved. I really liked CeeCee; I didn't want unhelpful hormones to get in the way of a friendship.

"See, maybe I should move to New York," mused Adam, sipping thoughtfully on his soda. "Then I'd be new and different and devastatingly handsome, and have girls pining over me all the time."

"You do that," agreed CeeCee good-naturedly. "Then Jesse and I wouldn't have to put up with you."

Adam threw a chip at her.

* * *

I was sitting in my room reading after dinner on Tuesday evening when Susannah suddenly appeared in front of me.

"Jesse!" she cried, evidently distressed. "I'm so sorry! She won't listen to me!"

"Wait, wait. What happened? Hannah?"

"She found Abigail alone in that park. She won't come away, I tried, but she's ridiculously strong…"

I was pulling my shoes on before she'd finished speaking.

"Is she doing anything to hurt Abi?" I demanded, zipping up my jacket and heading for the door.

"Not yet. I don't know what she plans to do, but I don't like it. She's so confused, and then she gets _angry.._."

"You go back and keep an eye on her, don't get involved unless she starts actually being violent. I'll be there as fast as I can."

Susannah nodded once, looking determined and calm once more, and vanished.

I hurtled through the streets of Carmel, narrowly avoiding evening walkers and earning more than a few angry shouts at my retreating back. Even so, it took nearly twenty minutes to reach the park where we had met Hannah at the weekend, and I dreaded what I might find

Abi told me later that I was like a man possessed as I hurtled through the entrance; at the time I didn't give it much thought, just screeched to halt and nearly toppled of my bike.

"You're alright." I wheezed, letting the bike fall to the floor and looking Abi up and down. "You're alright."

Abi gazed at me in shock. "Jesse?" she ventured slowly. "Are you…I mean, what's wrong?"

I shook my head, gulping for air. "Nothing. Nothing. It's…you've not seen anything odd, here, tonight, I mean? Have you?"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

This was rapidly spiralling out of control; in my panic, I hadn't really thought this bit through. From Susannah's panic, I'd been expecting Abi to be hurt, at the very least, not sitting on the bench, confused and bewildered by my presence but otherwise unharmed.

And then it got a whole heap worse.

"What," demanded Hannah with a sniff, "is _he_ doing here?"

I spun round; Hannah stood a few feet away glaring at me, and just behind her Susannah hovered, looking worried.

"I explained all this," she said patiently to the sulking girl. "Jesse can help you. If you'll just wait until your sister is gone, then he-"

"I don't want his help!" the young girl snapped, and several of the branches in the surrounding trees began to creak ominously.

"Susannah…" I called warningly. She glanced across at me, looking worried, and a moment later I understood why.

"Susannah?" demanded Abi, sounding less confused and more irritated with every passing minute. "Who the hell is Susannah? There's no one there, Jesse, you're talking to thin air."

"Sorry," I said quickly, turning back to face her. "I…thought I heard someone I knew."

Behind me, Hannah giggled. "Smooth, ghost-boy, real smooth."

I ignored her.

"Look, I think you should get home," continued Abi, still frowning. "Get some sleep. Maybe jet lag's catching up with you…"

"Yeah," chimed in Hannah, "Jet lag. That's exactly what it is. Listen to Abi."

"Will you shut up?" I shouted, swinging round to glare at the ghost. I was trying to think, and her incessant commentary was not helping.

"Oh Jesse…" sighed Susannah sadly

"What the hell is wrong with you?" demanded Abi. "There's no one there!"

"Wrong wrong wrong wrong," chanted Hannah, still giggling gleefully.

"Look, Abi, I know you must think I'm completely insane right now, but please, I need you to go home. Right away. It's not safe out here."

Abi stared at me in exasperation.

"She won't believe you," giggled Hannah. "And she won't go. Abi's stubborn. You're going to have to tell her something. Run with the insanity idea. It's not far wrong."

I ground my teeth, trying to ignore the younger sibling while I dealt with the older, who did indeed appear to be going nowhere.

"Hannah," I snapped. "Will you please _shut up_?"

This was not the right thing to say. Hannah screeched in indignation, while Abi's eyes narrowed.

"What?" hissed Abi, her voice dangerously quiet and shaking with anger. "Are you _sick_?"

Too late, I realised my mistake. There was no way out of this now. My mind was racing, desperately trying to think of something, anything to say, but there was nothing. Never had I made such a mess of things; Abi wasn't some stranger whose life I could slip back out of, leaving her with nothing but the memory of an odd and unjustifiably rude teenager. She knew Georgie, would no doubt come to my house, knew my name and who I was and she would tell people just how mental I was, how cruel. The life I had been trying to build for myself out here, the promises I had made to my mom, all that talk of new starts…barely a week, and I'd surpassed anything I'd ever done back in New York.

I vaguely registered Susannah's voice somewhere behind me, talking quietly.

"Hannah," she was saying gently, "Would you like to talk to your sister?"

"She can't," I said dully, not even bothering to hide the words from Abi – it was too late now, afterall, the damage was done. "I can't make Abi see or hear her. You know that."

"No, but she can talk to you, and you can talk to Hannah."

I hesitated. She had a point. It wouldn't be the first time I'd acted as go-between for a ghost and their living relative, though never so openly.

"Besides," added Susannah quietly. "I'm not sure this can get any worse for you, so the only thing that can really happen is for it to get better."

"You think?" I muttered grumpily, because in my experience, things could _always_ get worse. Right now, however, it looked like I didn't have much of a choice.

"Hannah?" I asked, turning to face her. She had stopped muttering and screaming now, and was watching Susannah and I carefully. "Would you like to talk to your sister?"

Slowly, very slowly, she nodded, just once.

"Abi," I continued, turning back to the elder sister. She was staring at me, apparently frozen by rage and disbelief, a combination of disgust and anger on her face and – crap – tears in her eyes.

"Shut up." she spat, shaking herself and making to leave. "I don't want to hear any more. You're wrong in the head, Jesse."

"Please," I pleaded, reaching out and catching her arm, "let me explain."

She shook it off. "Explain what, exactly? Your habit of talking to thin air? Or the way you seem to think it's funny to pretend to have conversations with my sister? My _dead_ sister?"

"No, no, of course not, I wasn't pretending…"

"There's no one else here but you and me!"

"There is!"

She gaped at me. "You're insane," she said flatly.

"Probably." I agreed. "But please. Just hear me out."

Abi stared at me through narrowed eyes for a very long moment.

"Ok," she conceded at last, "But only because until today I thought you were kind of nice. Prove it."

"Right," I nodded, letting out a long and thoughtful breath. I'd never tried to explain this to _anyone_ before. "This is going to sound insane."

"Yeah, I sort of guessed as much."

"I see dead people."

A beat.

"Oh, please," Abi cried, turning to leave again. "If that's the best you can come up with then I'm _going_. We're not in a freaking movie!"

"No! Well, yes, sort of like the movie, but not really. I see all dead people, all the time. Right now in this park there is you and me and the ghost of a girl who died in my bedroom one hundred and fifty years ago, and the ghost of your sister."

Abi was apparently beyond words; she stared at me, jaw sagging, paralysed by anger and disbelief.

"It's no good," I sighed, looking over at Hannah. "She won't believe me. You can't blame her."

Hannah frowned, thinking. I had never seen her so calm and rational, and for a moment she truly looked like the fourteen year old girl she had been.

"Tell her things," said Susannah quietly. "Things only Hannah would know."

Hannah smiled widely. "Yes," she beamed, "of course. Tell her…tell her when we were little, we used to play an imaginary game where we went away to boarding school and rode horses all the time, even though she's terrified of riding. And horses."

I relayed this information, watching as Abi's expression morphed from anger to wide-eyed disbelief.

"And when we were a little bit older, dad let us have a small bonfire in the garden. I was being silly, and I tripped and burnt my arm, and she sorted it out and we promised to not tell anyone, because if mom found out she'd never let us do it again. She arranges her books in alphabetical order, and hates me going in her room. Her favourite food is pizza, and she's weirdly obsessed with British TV programmes, and…"

"Stop," said Abi quietly. "Please. Just for a moment. I need to get my head round this."

I had been repeating everything Hannah said, but now both of us fell silent.

"You're not kidding, are you," sighed Abi shakily, sinking to the floor. "God. You're not…there's no way you could know that…not even _Georgie_…but…_Hannah_?"

She looked blankly round the park, as if expecting to see her sister materialise before her.

"You can't see her," I explained gently. "I'm sorry. But…she wants to talk to you. If that's ok."

Abi blinked. "Talk to me?" she whispered, looking completely lost.

"Well, not directly, obviously. But I can be a sort of…relay, I suppose…"

I was babbling, I realised, and shut up.

"Ok. What…what does she want?"

I looked expectantly over to Hannah. "I just…I just wanted to say sorry. For not being…what you wanted."

I obediently repeated this to Abi, who looked as surprised as I felt. "What do you mean?"

"Well. I…you never seemed to like me that much. When we got older, anyway. And I know I really irritated you, but you were just never that interested in me…"

"Nor you in me," pointed out Abi softly. "We're very different people, Han, we always were."

"But you've been so…so _calm_. I've been watching you, ever since the accident, even at my _funeral_ you didn't cry, you just _sat_ there…"

Abi shook her head slowly, looking suddenly old and very sad. "Oh, Hannah," she sighed. "Don't you see? I had to. Mom and Dad were falling apart; someone had to keep things together. And you know I'm no good at emotional stuff. But that never meant I don't love you."

"Love you too," sniffed Hannah. "And I'm sorry we wasted so much time."

"Me too."

"Don't forget me."

"Don't be silly."

She was fading, growing steadily more transparent; had I been near enough to touch her, my hand would have struggled to get a grip.

And then we were alone.

"She's gone?" asked Abi quietly.

I nodded.

She sank to the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them. "I'm alright," she assured me, seeing the concern on my face, "Honestly, I'm not going to have a break down or anything. Just…processing."

I shrugged and nodded, sitting beside her. "Sure. It's a lot to take in."

"So she's been there all the time? Ever since the accident?"

"I think so. I saw her for the first time that day I came into the bookshop."

Abi's eyes widened in sudden comprehension. "The shelf. That's how you were able to move so quick, you saw what she was doing…but why? I don't understand. Why did she want me dead?"

"I don't think she did. She was angry and upset and she wanted to talk to you. New ghosts are very powerful and not very good at control. When they get angry, things start to fly about."

We sat in silence for a while, nothing but the sound of distance cars and occasional bird.

"So you see all ghosts, then?" asked Abi suddenly, glancing over at me curiously. "Everyone who's died?"

"Everyone who dies and leaves unfinished business." I corrected. "Thankfully."

"So you what, move them to the next life?"

"Something like that. I try and help them work out why they're still here, and then, if I can, I help them move on."

"On to what?"

I shrugged. "I've no idea. I only know what happens when they hang around."

"It must be hard."

"What?"

"Well, all of it, really. I mean, I thought you were insane."

I grinned slightly. "Yeah, I get that a lot. My mom blames it on my dad dying."

"She doesn't know?"

"It never seemed…right, I guess, to tell her. I'm not sure she'd even believe me. And she'd worry. My dad hung round for a while after he died, but you're the only person I actually know who knows."

Abi's eyes were round. "Really? You never told anyone?"

"As if they'd believe me. But please, Abi, keep it to yourself. Don't tell anyone, not even Georgie."

She nodded seriously. "Of course. But Jesse, are you sure? I mean, that's a hell of a job to do on your own."

I shrugged. "I do alright."

Susannah laughed in disbelief. "Oh yes, you had this one completely under control," she teased.

I glared at her. Abi twisted around to follow my gaze. "I'd forgotten…you said someone else's name…Susannah, wasn't it? Is she still here?"

I nodded, and Susannah came to stand in front of us, smiling at Abi despite the fact that she couldn't see her.

"She says hello," I translated.

"Hi," grinned Abi, looking at a point slightly to the left of Susannah's elbow. Susannah smiled slightly wistfully at the girl, more cheerfully at me, and vanished.

"She's gone."

"Sorry. Did I do something wrong?"

"Not at all."

Abi shivered slightly. "And they just…pop in and out all the time?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Sometimes they find me, sometimes I find them."

"Like Hannah?"

"Yes."

"And Susannah?"

"She used to live in my house."

"But it's been derelict for years."

"I'm not sure, but I think she died sometime around 1850."

Abi looked stunned. "And she's just been what, hanging around ever since?"

"I think so."

"She doesn't know why?"

"Not that she's told me."

We sat in silence a while longer, while the park grew dark around us and the lights flickered on.

"I should go," said Abi eventually, getting to her feet. "My parents will be wondering where I've got to."

"I'll see you tomorrow,"

"Yeah. And…thanks, Jesse."

I shrugged awkwardly. "Anytime."

"Hopefully not," she said with a wry grin. "Goodnight."

"Night,"

I watched her walk back up the path until she was out of sight, swallowed by the darkness.

* * *

_To be continued…_

* * *

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